Four Months Later
by rain and leaves
Summary: Set after Four Months Later. Instead of throwing lightning at his attackers, an amnesiac Peter involuntarily teleports himself to America  halfway up a tree, outside a girl's bedroom. Rating is for incestuous themes.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

There are men shining a light in his eyes and shouting at him, and he's scared and doesn't know who they are or – actually – who _he_ is. The noise and confusion echo in the confines of this small room. The threat of violence is palpable, and when he sees a gun he panics, and suddenly he's –

- halfway up a tree. His ears hurt from the sudden silence, and the air's cold and so is the bark he grabs as he starts to fall. Looking around wildly, he notices a boy beside him, staring at him open-mouthed, and he stares back because the boy's not holding on to any rough bark, and his shoes are hanging unsupported in the air.

"What the _fuck_?"

The boy's floating, and boys are definitely not supposed to be floating, and what is he doing floating outside some house in the middle of the night?

But then he knows. Because this tree overlooks a bedroom, and in the bedroom he can see a slight figure with long, blonde hair. He's about to answer the boy when she turns around.

"_Who is she?"_ That face is like – seeing it's like being hit.

He takes his eyes off her, with difficulty, and the boy's scared face makes him feel, oddly, dangerous. "The girl. Who is she?"

"Her name's Claire. She goes to my school."

_Claire._

"Get out of here." He must look frightening, because the boy obeys instantly.

Flying boys and men with guns are pushed out of his thoughts, and he can't focus on anything but the girl in that bedroom. There's a branch that looks pretty sturdy right outside the window, and without thinking about the consequences, he inches out on it and knocks.

She looks as shocked as he feels. For a split second he actually doubts this, has a vision of screaming and police cars pulling up outside, but then she opens the window and pulls him through, awkwardly. He knees her in the side by accident but she doesn't seem to care, throwing her arms around him as soon as she gets him upright.

"_Peter_, oh my God, oh my God."

His name. Must be. He holds her tightly, and she feels like heaven and smells like something he thinks he might have dreamt about, something all tangled up with the thought of her hair and her eyes, the way they feel like memories. He knows her. He wants to ask her how.

"Claire - "

But she looks up at him, and something in her upturned face makes him forget what he wanted to say, and instead he kisses her.

It's not – there are a lot of things that this kiss is _not_, including brief, controllable, and chaste – but it's not familiar, either.

When they break apart he pushes her away, gently. "I'm sorry. We don't kiss, do we?"

The look on her face is suddenly very hard to read. "No."

Peter – that is his name, after all – steps back against the wall and folds his arms, just to be on the safe side, and tells her everything he can remember. About his entire life. It doesn't take very long.

Claire won't tell him who he is, who she is, why the fact that he went from being handcuffed and terrified to outside her window in half a second doesn't surprise her, or why they don't kiss when they were clearly born to do it. He can feel the distance stretching out between them with every question she claims she can't answer.

When he admits he's tired Claire goes to steal some pajamas from her brother, leaving him shut in her room, hiding behind drawn curtains. When she comes back she catches him staring at himself in the mirror. But she doesn't say anything about it.

He can't leave the room. She can't sleep anywhere else. She can't tell him anything until she talks to her dad, which she'll do in the morning, but for some reason she can't just go and talk to him now. The rules are frustrating, seemingly arbitrary, so when she turns off the lights and lies down beside him he kisses her again, because it's the only question she can't seem to help but answer.

Whatever reason they might have had for not kissing flies out the window. Claire kisses him back like she's drowning, and this time she doesn't let him stop.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

"Dad, can I talk to you for a second?"

Claire tries to keep her voice light, but she widens her eyes significantly and glances towards the office. Her dad picks up on it.

"Sure," he says, throwing his napkin down on the breakfast table, "Can we talk while I work?"

Lyle and Claire's mom don't notice anything out of the ordinary as Claire follows her dad into the office. He's always 'working' on the computer, sending and receiving cryptic emails in the only windowless – and therefore safe – room in the house.

"Peter's back," she says, as soon as he closes the door. "He's alive, he's upstairs in my room, but he doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know who _I_ am, and he's wearing that symbol – that necklace the Haitian used to wear."

Dad stares at her for a second, then his eyes flicker around the room and he gets that look she recognises, the one that means he's coming up with a plan.

He doesn't ask any stupid questions. "Your curtains should be open by now. Can he go invisible?"

"No, I don't think he can do anything anymore. He did teleport here, but he doesn't know how he did it."

"Okay. We're going to go upstairs, and you're going to send Peter into my room."

"How - ?" Claire doesn't see how this is going to fit in with the carefully normal appearance they've been trying to keep up.

"Follow my lead, and act natural."

Claire follows her dad out into the kitchen, where he casually pours himself a cup of coffee. "When you're the new kid," he says, with the air of continuing a conversation, "people are going to test you. But all you have to do is be yourself, and I'm sure they'll - "

Making his way around the counter, Dad knocks his elbow on Lyle's schoolbag, and coffee splashes all over his shirt. "Oh, god_damnit_," he exclaims angrily, "Lyle, why is your bag on the counter?"

"Dad, are you okay?" The coffee's hot, she realises, and it must actually hurt – the thought makes her realise again how important this deception is.

He turns on her. "Claire, are your curtains open?" he demands.

"No, I - "

"Oh, honey, you want me to get you another shirt?" Mom asks, but Dad waves the suggestion away, heading towards the stairs.

The act's so impressive, Claire forgets for a second what's in her room. Then she remembers – the pajamas on the floor, the _sheets_ – and she hurries after her dad, intending to head him off.

Turns out she needn't have worried. Dad goes straight to his room, shutting the curtains in there, and when she opens her bedroom door the bed's made up, complete with hospital corners, and the curtains are moving slightly – she must have left the window open last night. The room smells like fresh air and perfume.

"Two doors down," she tells Peter.

Alone in her room, Claire can almost pretend that nothing happened last night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it. The cannon thing I owe entirely to my beta, who says it so often I couldn't help but include it. Thanks MS!

Mr. Butler tells Peter a few things – that everyone thinks he's dead, that he knows who wiped his memory, that the Butler family is in hiding from the man who did it and the company he works for – but he also tells him that the less he knows right now, the better. Peter decides that if Claire and her father want to keep secrets, they don't need to know about the flying boy. He didn't seem dangerous, just kind of pathetic and a little creepy, so Peter holds on to the one thing _he_ has the power to keep from _them_.

Of course there is one other thing he has no intention of telling Mr. Butler. The guy's voice is calm and measured, but his expression is pretty intense and he seems – not angry, exactly, but he's not a happy man.

"You don't like me, do you?" Peter asks him bluntly.

Butler smiles. "Actually, Peter, I like you very much. But you slept in my daughter's bed last night. You can understand why that would upset me, can't you?"

_Oh, right_. Butler's smile is disturbing, and Peter suspects that if he knew what else had gone on in his daughter's bed last night, he would shoot him.

With a cannon.

"Yeah, I get that. Sorry," he adds.

At this point Claire comes in, and the relief Peter feels surprises him.

"Dad, what happens now?"

"Now you go to school, and I call in sick to work." Butler holds up a hand to forestall her objections. "It's only your second day of school, it'll look too weird if you don't go today. You can stay home with Peter tomorrow."

Peter bridles at being treated like a stray dog. "Why does anyone have to stay with me? You don't trust me alone, is that it?"

"No, I don't."

"Dad!"

"I'm going to find the man who took your memory, Peter, and when he gives it back I'll trust you. But until then you're going to have to bear with me." Butler says it with finality, and somehow Peter doesn't doubt him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

Claire can't concentrate in school. The cheerleaders laugh when they pass her, but she doesn't care right now. West doesn't talk to her at all. She wouldn't have noticed, but when she catches him staring at her she realises, with a sick jolt, that he looks kind of like Peter. Dark eyes, and hair that falls into them sometimes in a way that Peter's doesn't anymore. He looks more like a Petrelli than she does.

When Claire gets home she slips into the office. Peter's lying down on the couch, reading – Activating Evolution. She didn't think they had a copy.

"I know," he says, looking up at her. "You can't tell me anything about it."

"Right."

Her parents are talking to each other in the kitchen and Lyle's upstairs. The only problem is, she doesn't know how to start. She laces her fingers together, twisting them. "Peter. About last night. I'm – I'm really sorry."

"What? Why?" He sits up, and lays the book aside.

"Because when you get your memory back you're going to hate me for it. Just trust me."

"I do trust you."

It doesn't mean that he believes her. It means something else, something that's got nothing to do with the words he said and everything to do with the way he looks at her. It makes her face hot. It sinks her stomach and turns her throat into butterflies. It drives her out of the room, because someday he's going to hate her for making him look at her like this.

Claire changes the sheets in her room, taking the dirty ones into the laundry and washing them herself, which isn't quite as extreme as burning them but is easier for her to do while maintaining the pretence that everything's normal.

But because it's so _not_ normal, after dinner she finds herself calling Nathan's cell.

"Hello?" Pause. "Is this you again?" Shorter pause. "I told you to stop calling."

She hangs up without saying anything, and when she turns around Peter's in the doorway.

"You call someone just to hang up?"

Claire sits down on her bed, hurriedly wiping away the tears. "I guess I just wanted to hear his voice," she says quietly.

"Whose voice?" Peter demands, his expression darkening.

It takes a second for her to realise that he's not mad because she won't tell him about his brother, that he couldn't be mad about that because he doesn't even know he has a brother. He's _jealous_.

Of _Nathan_.

It'd be funny, if – well, _if_ a lot of things. If they weren't, say, or if they hadn't. "He's a friend of mine. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

Claire doesn't know what to say.

After a long silence, Peter leaves.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

Peter wakes with a start. His pulse is racing and the digital clock in the office is blinking 4:13, and he remembers – things. He's been dreaming about his past, but it's not coherent, it's just images and sounds and he can't figure out what they mean.

Bright, bright light, for one thing. Being in pain, in agony, and the pain slowly fading away. Claire sitting on her bed, crying – he frowns. Wasn't that yesterday? But it wasn't, no, because in his dream he wipes the tears off her face, and she can't be sitting on her bed, because they're outside.

Peter gets up and starts to pace. The dream's slipping away from him, and he claws at the fragments. Hundreds of balloons, red, white and blue. Flying, through a city – everyone has flying dreams, but this one feels real and thinking of the flying boy and the book, Activating Evolution, Peter doesn't rule it out as a memory.

He remembers people, but can't bring their faces to mind – the only one he can remember is a quiet, dark-eyed man whose face he doesn't recognize. Mr. Butler was there at some point, in the dream, and there's a painting of a man on fire, with white, glowing eyes. Peter can't make sense of this. But it feels _so_ important, and for the first time, Peter knows that the memories are all still there, in his head. He just can't get to them.

He's still thinking about it when the rest of the household starts waking up, and by then he's piecing together some other things. Painting, for one thing, is important. Balloons are unimportant, but the faces they obscure are very, very important. And there's something about Claire he should know, but doesn't.

When she brings him some coffee, he decides to test his knowledge.

"Did you ever have a blue jacket? Dark blue, with white - " he doesn't know how to explain what the white bits were, but he can tell Claire knows what he's talking about. It emboldens him to ask the crazy question. "Claire, can I fly?"

"Yes," she says, faintly. Aha – she's wondering what else he knows, whether he remembers what he has come to think of as The Big Secret. "You – used to be able to fly. Someone you knew could fly, and when you were around him, you could fly too."

Him? It's got to be the floating boy. Peter didn't know him the way he instantly knew Claire, but then he didn't know Mr. Butler either. "Who is he?"

She hesitates, looking behind her to make sure the door's still closed before she answers. "He's your brother."

The floating boy looks sort of like him, but if he's Peter's brother why didn't he say anything the other night? Has his memory been wiped too? Peter remembers that he goes to Claire's school, and thinks about the phone call, and wonders if this isn't the Big Secret. But she's only been going to that school two days – it doesn't add up.

"Peter – do you remember the guy who wiped your memory?"

"What?"

"Think about him," she says earnestly. "You can do what he can do, if you just _think_ about him. Like you could fly. Like you can do this."

Claire takes the stapler off the desk, and fires a staple into her hand. Before he can react, she pushes the stapler against his arm. "Ow! Jesus!"

He claps a hand to his arm and stares at her. But then Claire picks the staple out of her hand, and her blood is sucked back into the pinpricks like magic, like film run backwards. Peter pulls at the staple in his arm, and watches in fascinated horror as the exact same thing happens to him. There's no trace of a mark.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

"Nathan. He's alive."

There's a long silence, and she wonders if he's sober enough to understand her. But when his voice comes, it's as clear as it gets, these days.

"Where are you?"

Claire tells him the location of a diner twenty minutes out of town, and he says he'll be right there. She's a little worried about him flying drunk, but she's more worried that he'll be recognized. When she hangs up she ties back her hair and bundles it under a cap.

Driving to the diner she worries about so many things – about being followed, about being caught, by her dad or by the Company – but she has to take this risk. Peter's remembering.

Nathan's coffee's cold by the time he comes in, and so is he. "Where is he?"

She tells him what she knows, and what she suspects about Peter's ability to regain his memories. He listens with growing impatience and irritation. "I'm coming over," he says, the minute she stops talking.

"Nathan, _no_. The Company can't find us, do you understand me? I'm taking a big enough risk just meeting you."

"Then why didn't you just tell me over the phone?"

Claire looks down at the table, and before she really comes to a concrete decision about it she hears herself say, "Because I've done something terrible. Something so bad, I can't tell anyone, I can't even tell Peter – when he finds out, he's going to – I don't know."

Tears fill her eyes. When she risks a glance at Nathan, he's just a blur. "What did you do?"

"I slept with him," she whispers.

"Oh, my God, Claire." Nathan doesn't seem to know what to say. He spreads his hands out on the table and stares at them.

Claire starts to cry, and can't stop. After a second Nathan gets up and comes over to sit beside her. He puts an arm around her shoulders and hugs her, and even though he smells like whiskey, the relief she feels when he tells her it's going to be okay makes her turn into the embrace and hold on to him as she cries.

It's not okay.

They both know there's no way it's going to be okay.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews!

7

By the time she's stopped crying, safe in Nathan's arms, Claire's come to a decision. This has to be the last breakdown, because she needs to be strong now. Claire needs to protect the people she loves, and there's only one way she can think of that – to twist the words of her Ethics teacher – provides the greatest amount of protection to the largest number of loved ones.

She can survive a nuclear explosion. Of course she can do this.

But then Claire remembers someone handing her a gun.

She shakes the thought off, taking a deep, reasonably steady breath. "I'm sorry, Nathan."

He clearly misses her decisive tone. "It's going to be okay, I promise. I do. I'll do all the talking, I'll tell him how you met . . . he's going to understand."

Claire sits up and scoots down from Nathan on the seat, wiping at her eyes as she settles herself, far enough from him to say her next line. "You can't see him yet. If the Company didn't follow you here they're sure as hell gonna be staking out your place, and I know that's where you want to take him – but believe me, he's safer at my house so far. We don't think anyone's noticed anything yet, we're still a Stepford family. But I promise, I'll bring him to you as soon as I can."

It's all scripted now – not the exact words, but the shape of the plan is there, waiting for her to step in and say her lines.

They conduct a brief, whispered argument, which Claire's script wins.

She leaves Nathan at the diner. Alone again.

But calling him was a stupid mistake, she knew it when she called and she now knows it so much better, now that the Plan To Save Us All is in effect.

The plan doesn't make her feel any better about leaving her bio-dad a bearded, drunken, frustrated mess. The Plan hurts already.

And it's going to get worse.

Claire discovers how much worse when she comes back into the house and finds Peter standing in the office, arms folded. "Guess you 'can't tell me' what that was about."

The secrecy's getting to him; he's irritable a lot of the time now.

"It was your brother," Claire says.

"You met with my brother?" His expression changes instantly. "Where is he? What did he say?"

"Actually, he had to go back where he came from. He wanted to take you with him, it's just that his apartment's being watched, you know – the same people who are watching us here."

Peter's starting to look crestfallen, so she adds, "He wants to see you as soon as he can. I talked to him about you, and he said," risky, this step is so risky, "He said I should tell you the thing. The reason, you know, that we – that we don't kiss."

His ears prick up at this, and for a moment she can see the thought of Nathan takes the backseat in his mind. Is it a bad reason? A good one? A totally final, no-coming-back-from-this one? She can tell he's wild to know.

Claire answers his expression. "I'm sixteen," she says, with what she hopes is the perfect inflection – yes this is it, a terrible thing, total dealbreaker, _please don't hate me._

After that Peter follows the script, saying he thought she was a senior, that she was seventeen at least, that he's so sorry, and how could she ever think he would hate her?

Hearing that Claire can't go on, can't seem to find her dialogue.

But then he looks at her in _that_ way, and she remembers all the reasons she has for saying, sharply, "_Wait_, are you thinking – I don't even know _what_ you're thinking. I'm sixteen, Peter; did you lose the part of your brain that tells you that is a very bad thing?"

"I _know_ you, Claire. I knew you when I didn't know my own name. I know you're something to me, and I don't want to be creepy or anything, but I knew from the moment I saw you you were _mine_. That you belonged to me somehow, with me. I teleported halfway across the world, had no idea what I was doing or where I was going, and I came to you. It's destiny."

The simple conviction in Peter's eyes sways her, just like always. Just like every time he's told her about destiny, and she's believed him.

It makes it harder to do what she has to do now. Claire turns away, makes her voice high and sceptical. "_Destiny_? Is that what you call sleeping with an underage girl in her parents' house? We were friends. I made a mistake. And you call it _destiny_?"

The sarcasm in her voice has stung him, she can tell by the silence.

Then Peter's voice returns, purposefully casual. "A mistake? You were just so glad I was alive, you let me fuck you?"

The crudity hits Claire, insults her, makes her cry out _No_ in her mind, but only in her mind because her very next thought is, _Save him_.

Peter grabs her wrist and drags her around to face him. He's angry, and his hand is raising bruises. "That's _not_ all it was, you _know_ it."

"I'm sixteen!" Claire protests. "I have a life, and it doesn't include any psycho destiny talk! I'm really sorry I did that to you. I am."

She wrenches her arm out of his grip. They both watch the bruises vanish.

"But I don't think of you that way, Peter." Claire says, defiantly meeting his gaze.

It's the coup de grace, the let's-be-friends, the please-don't-talk-to-me-on-the-bus-anymore. Peter takes it like a shot to the heart.

But she goes upstairs, and doesn't look back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** I'll reply to reviews next time; sorry, but I'm too tired tonight. In this chapter: more angst and more dreams, hope you enjoy it.

**8**

When he gets over the shock, the first thing Peter feels is – _anger_. He sits down on the couch, heavily, and clasps his hands in front of him.

His knuckles are white. A small voice somewhere deep within him reacts to the anger with panic, like someone else shouting at him from a long way away, but he focuses on his hands and tunes it out.

Claire lied to him. And he's powerless, totally powerless, to do a damn thing about it. He wants to punch a hole in the wall. He wants to go upstairs and grab her, just shake her and demand that she confess, hurt her if he has to.

No, God, he doesn't want to hurt Claire. But when his fingers were digging into her wrist Peter saw something else startled into her eyes – connection – before the lie slid back down, shut her down. She still looked into his eyes, but he couldn't see her. And it was worth it for that moment, Peter tells himself, hurting her, bruising her like that. For the truth. Right?

But this thought unleashes a wave of words, images, that all come connected with the phrase _save her_. It's been haunting him all day, and now it rises on the shame of hurting her and the anger at her lie, and Peter hears a crack in his hand and realizes something is broken.

He tries to focus. Pulls himself together as muscle and bone shift, pull his hand back into shape. Pushes memories aside. He can't piece them together and all they're doing is worsening this awful feeling. They're fragments, and loose like this they can't entirely shake the idea from his mind – dangerous idea – that maybe he _would_ like to hurt Claire. Slam her against a wall and see that truth, those eyes he saw the night she kissed him and didn't care, didn't care about anything at all; to grab a fistful of that glossy hair and pull her to him – kiss her so she can't deny it ever again.

Violence? The notion writhes snakelike through his mind – frightening that still, small voice inside him that begs him to _calm down_. Peter fixes his attention on the truth in the lie, the one thing she told him he felt was real. So, Claire's sixteen.

That must have been something Old Peter knew. But suspicion uncurls, sending cool tendrils though the anger – there has to be something else. Because Claire's age, while it does give him pause, doesn't seem to be a good enough reason to keep her and Old Peter at a distance_, just friends_. Peter can't remember a whole lot about his previous life, but he's pretty damn sure he never kissed any of his _friends_ the way Claire kissed him the other night.

The lies don't add up.

That night, Mr. Butler comes to see Peter in the office.

"You said you might have something?

"Yes – no, maybe nothing. But it's a theory."

Butler inclines his head, a signal for Peter to go on.

He's unsure how to phrase it. "What if – what if I knew something, something so damaging, that I would have chosen this to protect others? Wipe out everything I am - what if I did this to myself?"

Butler leans back in his chair, his cool, grey eyes thoughtful. "That's a very insightful guess, Peter. What made you think of that?"

Your daughter's eyes. Your daughter's back, the way it looks in the moonlight.

"I'm having dreams. I can't put them together, but underneath it all is a growing sense of dread. Total dread. In the dream I'm scared, I think there's something in me that's wrong, that's so badly wrong that it could destroy lives. And I want to - " Peter concentrates, searching for the right words. "To stop it. Blot it out."

Peter looks up to see how Butler's reacting to this. He pauses for a moment, and Peter thinks that this is it, he's finally going to be told something – but the moment passes, and Butler says, noncommittally, "Sounds like the man I knew. Keep trying, something else may come to you."

He claps him on the shoulder on his way out the door.

It takes Peter a long time to get to sleep that night, and his couch isn't exactly the most comfortable bed in the house. Trying to find a position in which he can doze off, he becomes aware of fireworks – briefly – then a squeaking and a rolling, a linoleum sound. The time flashes on the digital clock, and his alarm is due to go off any minute. A painting that drips red from the bottom; a skillet; tiny shards of glass just everywhere, beautiful and he thinks, uneasily: _he's got a knife_.

And then the random sparking of his recalcitrant memories is gone and he's awake. On deck, on a very cold, very still night. This isn't a dream. Peter can hear voices, some loud and authoritative, some hushed; and sounds he can't identify but which speak of brisk, mechanical activity. The man beside him says, "They've done everything they can."

Claire's eyes shine with tears. She pulls her blanket closer around her, over her white nightgown – but now that Peter looks again, the garment she's wearing is a white, silk dress, an old-fashioned dress that sweeps the smooth, polished floors of the deck. Her blonde hair is swept up, and rubies dangle from her ears. "There must be something . . . another way," she pleads.

The man speaks again, maybe comforting her, but Peter isn't listening. He's looking. The man is tall and dark, bearded but groomed, his hair and moustache sleek with brilliantine. He wears a white evening jacket, and as Peter notices this he realises that he is wearing the same thing. That the women around him wear high-necked nightgowns with foxfurs, or long evening dresses and lifejackets. Peter has a terrible feeling.

The sea, he knows without looking, is perfectly still. The stars shine right down to the horizon. Water, lapping against the stars. It's so cold, he can see their breath. The tall man – Peter feels that this is his father, though when he looks past the beard he can see that the man is, at most, ten years older than him – gives him a significant look over Claire's head. As though he, too, knows.

"We have to get Claire into a boat," Peter says urgently. The tall man is already nodding. _Save her, save her, fifteen hundred but not her._

"There aren't enough," she protests. But a man in a uniform leads her away. Peter can see his arm behind her back, the glint of his glasses above her head; and he can hear his soothing murmur, "This way, Miss Petrelli, no need to be frightened."

Peter and the tall man follow them to the boats, and Peter stands by the tall man as they watch Claire being lowered into the sea. Something in her upturned face makes Peter (_want to)_ – no – remember: a woman waiting for them in Paris, a list in New York of the survivors, and the names that she would not hear.

They rise higher, and she sinks, and after a little while they can't see her tears at all.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews! I've taken a long break on this fic because, while it was originally intended to be quite short, I've decided to make it a total re-imagining of Season Two, and I was figuring out how things would work. So thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thanks today go to Miss S. for cheerleading bits and pieces, any mistakes left are my own. I know the chapters are really short, but they'll get longer as the fic progresses.

**9**

"Have you told him yet?"

The kitchen's too damn close to the office. Claire shuts the refrigerator door and thinks fast. "West? How'd you get this number?"

A quick glance shows an empty doorway, but she takes her glass of water outside, just in case. "Is someone listening?"

"Was," Claire says, keeping her voice down. "Look, I haven't. And I'm not going to."  
Nathan expresses his disbelief instantly, with a little of the old high-handed, big-shot politician decisiveness. He's obviously coming back to himself.

It takes her a while to talk over him. "Would you just listen? He has to stay here for now, I told you that, and if I tell him now . . . I don't know. It could just be really uncomfortable, or he could even run, and if he runs, they're going to find him. Believe me."

"Have you told him _anything_?"

"Have you told your mom?"

He's silent for a long time, long enough for Claire to give up. She sighs. "I told him I'm sixteen, that we're just friends and it was a mistake. He knows it's not going to happen again."

Strange, that it shouldn't feel horrifically weird talking to Nathan about this. He tells her she's god damn right it's not going to happen again, and a whole lot of stuff about how Peter's not going to be fooled that easily, and that he's going to go nuts when he remembers, and what exactly does she think he's going to feel when he finds out they've been keeping this from him?

"He can blame me," Claire says firmly. "As far as he's concerned, you didn't know anything about it." The argument begins again, but she knows how to play on Nathan's sense of duty, on his desire to protect his brother, and eventually she beats him down. She's won. But she feels so empty.

"Don't worry about coming down yet. I made a mistake, Nathan, and I'm fixing it. I can handle this. You have to let me be the strong one here."

"You're going to fix your mistake by not letting him remember who you are? Guess you take after your dad."

"No, I'm lying to him to protect him. Can't think where I got that one."

"Must be Ma." Claire can hear a reluctant smile in Nathan's voice and imagines, absurdly, that he's proud of her.

The conversation comforts her, makes her feel like the Plan is the right thing to do after all. She's been having some doubts. A lot of doubts. Destiny-sized doubts. But as she hangs up the phone and heads back inside, Claire feels strong again and cold, like a statue. Like she can pull the trigger this time, because now it's not New York she's trying to save, it's her family, her families. And the only person she has to sacrifice is herself.

"Butler's not your real name, is it?" Peter asks Claire when she passes the office, standing in the shadows behind the doorway. They haven't really been on speaking terms since yesterday's altercation, and the question sounds more like an accusation. Claire wonders, with a shiver of dread, what it is Peter's remembered now.

"What do you think?" she replies noncommittally.

"Is it Petrelli?"

Claire stares at him, lost for words. But he doesn't look – she doesn't know – like she might expect him to look if he knew: not mad, or beaten down, or consumed with self-loathing; just expectant.

"No," she manages, at last.

He frowns. Claire's going to just keep walking, but the idea halts her, makes her think _Claire Petrelli_: a name she's thought to herself on two very different occasions. In two very different contexts. _Is your name Petrelli?_

Well, is it? Claire wonders.

It's not Nathan's betrayed daughter, but the girl who smiled into Peter Petrelli's eyes in a deserted high school hall that says, "What made you think that?"

And Peter says, "I had a dream," the way he always does, like it was incontestable proof. He folds his arms and looks at her like she might confess. But she doesn't.

XxX

Claire has a dream of her own that night.

She's at her old high school, in the locker room, and for some reason Jackie's decided they're going to have practice right there. She wants to do a stunt, and Claire's nominated as the flyer. Claire's never the flyer; there have always been thinner, lighter girls than her on the squad: even in a dream, this seems an unreasonable request. The lights flicker, and Claire's uneasy.

But Jackie is adamant. And so into the centre of the group Claire goes, her right foot in one girl's grasp, her hands on two girls' shoulders. Jackie's meant to be behind her, but as Claire rises into the air and her left foot is caught, she can't feel anyone grasping her ankles. Jackie's not there. The lights flicker, and go out.

Claire falls. There's a swooping feeling in her stomach and her hands fly out, and there's a confusion of grasping hands and digging elbows, but she's falling straight backwards, into the dark, and no one's there to catch her.

The _crack_ her head makes as it hits the floor reverberates. Shatters through her shattered skull. Louder than anything she's ever heard, final in a way Claire has not found these bone-breaking sounds to be in a year. There are no more sounds from the other girls, and Claire realises that she's alone.

Or not. No. The darkness shifts and lifts, barely, and for a moment the dark figure seems to be Peter, but she knows it's not. And then his cap comes into view, and the figure leans over her, his face a shadow – she's never seen it. And that's the most frightening part, that the man has no face, though Claire also knows that she can't move and that her skull is broken open, her blood all over the ground and on his hands and that no one's coming this time. The man – Sylar – has no face.

Claire screams.

Wakes up, in the dark, on her back, and for one horrible moment feels the wetness of blood under her head before she realises that it's sweat. Just sweat.

xXx

Dad starts to trust Peter alone in the house as he begins to come back to himself, and Claire takes to the unexpected freedom of school. That guy West starts talking to her again, and he's actually kind of funny, once you get past the stupid 'quirky alien guy' defences. He's lonely under all that, and despite the annoying quirks she recognises that loneliness; responds to that, rather than the dorky façade.

But Claire has an accident. It's nothing to her, but it seems to mean a lot to West. Like a whole lot. The look on his face as her tendons reattach and her skin slides smoothly back into place is – complicated, somehow. Not really as scared as she'd imagined. It reminds her of something, and it's not until the next day, when Claire regains the confidence to let West approach her, that she remembers what it is.

"Please say something," she begs, breathless and wide-eyed.

He smiles and leans down towards her. "I can _fly_," he confides.

And the deja-vu is a double shot. West looked like Meredith when he saw her power, that was who it was, Meredith who hadn't been freaked out by what Claire could do because she, too, had been a freak. And now West sounds so very much like Peter.

"You can – fly?"

Claire incorporates West into the Plan. It's not really that hard, she likes him fine now, and the Petrelli resemblance works in his favour – she can acknowledge that. Sick and twisted as it is, she has to acknowledge it.

That night they fly.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks Iagus! Choices is pretty hard (but fun, honestly!) to write because of the format; it's definitely going to continue, and end, but there may not be a lot of rapid updates. I'm really sorry, I hope you bear with me. And thanks for your comment on this (ages ago) that you liked Peter not being the reluctant one - I know he'd normally know better, but since when did Peter not follow his heart, dreams, instincts (however insane) with total determination? Anyway, that's how I think it'd be. But I'm not saying that means anything for this fic so no spoilers there!

**10**

Nathan sits on the knowledge as long as he can, trying to trust Claire's judgement. Claire's obviously, terribly, flawed judgement. But the shocks have been coming hard and fast the past few weeks, or the past year, and when a man falls to his death one night it's the trigger Nathan needs.

"I need you to find someone for me." Nathan says.

He's talking with Matt Parkman just outside the room where his mother sits, suspected of having killed Kaito Nakamura. He's just arrived and knows she doesn't want to see him, and he doesn't know what to think. Unbelievable, that he might really be suspecting Ma of having murdered Kaito. But then she'd planned to murder point-seven-per-cent of the world, and in the face of that, the killing of one old Japanese guy doesn't really seem like all that much.

"We don't do that." Parkman says firmly. Few days ago he'd have dismissed Nathan, looked at him with that pity reserved for those who've fallen hard and fast.

But Nathan's not some drunken loser anymore – sure, everything in his life is going to hell again, and his family's in danger, but Nathan's ready to deal with it now. Because Peter's alive.

Peter's alive, and that makes the whole sorry mess worth working out. It makes Nathan stand taller than he has in months. Keeps him off the sauce. He hasn't touched a drop since Claire's first call. Parkman sees something of this, maybe, and maybe that's why he looks like he's about to say something else when the first scream comes tearing through the station.

Nathan's running. Without thinking about it, without fear or anticipation he's running toward the sound, and when he finds her kneeling on the floor, her face a mask of terror, blood dripping from the deep scratches, Nathan realises that nothing has ever mattered. Nothing will ever matter. Nothing she does, has ever done, is ever going to change the way Nathan feels about his mother. And he holds her tightly, so very conscious of how small she is now, and tells her everything's okay, it's okay.

And it is.

Nathan stays with Ma as she's processed, questioned, whatever. He sits beside her and feels a cold fury unfolding within him for the unknown assailant. Fury, not fear, even when he sees the picture of her with the helix smeared on it in blood; Nathan knows he's going to find the son of a bitch who hurt his mother, and kill him. He's going to find this Company who's threatening his brother, his daughter, and he's going to deal with them too. And he's going to get his wife and his sons back, and no one is going to stand in his way.

It's okay.

It doesn't matter what they've done, any of them.

It's okay.

Nathan brings his mother back to Peter's apartment, where he shaves and changes his clothes. Ma's face, white under the red gouges, reminds him of Claire's pale, tragic look. They need to pull themselves together, all of them; Nathan can't stand to see them looking like that. He likes Claire bright-eyed and defiant, and his mother cool and composed. Omniscient. And it's true that she knows more than she's telling, particularly about tonight's attack, but she just looks vulnerable tonight. Like her secrets aren't precious, so much as too awful to reveal.

He needs to wipe that look from her eyes, and when he rejoins her, clean-shaven and sober, what he tells her does it at once.

"Alive."

"Yes. And Matt Parkman's going to find him for us."

"Parkman . . ." Ma says, and her voice weakens for a moment. Then, "Yes," she says confidently, "He will."

After the months of guilt, and mourning, and fighting, they're somehow united again. Nathan understands the destructive power in Ma – in Peter, in Claire, in himself – and his solution is so simple, he could laugh. They've expended it on one another and almost destroyed the world. But now he plans to bring them all together, to unite them, and to turn that darkness outward and onto the ones who deserve it. Nathan almost feels sorry for his enemies, whoever they are – almost.

Later, Ma sits in state in Parkman's apartment; bolt upright in her chair, surveying Parkman with a cool gaze. Molly Walker looks at the picture on Nathan's cellphone and smiles.

"I know her. I saw her at Kirby Plaza. She's very pretty."

She is. Claire takes after Meredith in her looks – not surprising, then, that Nathan's folly in Texas was eventually followed by Peter's folly in Texas. Peter's sin, somewhere in California. The thought still makes him sick, and sad – just unutterably sad for those poor, damned kids. They never stood a chance.

But Nathan manages a smile for Molly, and for Ma, who he hasn't told – not that part, even though in some way he feels it's her fault.

"Can you find her, Molly?"

The little girl looks a moment longer at the picture. Then she nods.

Parkman looks on, disapprovingly, and Nathan understands why when Molly closes her eyes and her face slowly drains of colour. The small hand hovering over the map is shaking, a little, and he realises what the effort's doing to her.

"Here."

"Costa Verde," Nathan reads. He looks up at Ma.

Molly takes a deep breath, and lifts her eyes to Nathan.

"Be careful of her dad," she says, earnestly. "He was gonna shoot me once."

Improbably, the warning startles Nathan into a smile. "Me too," he replies. "Don't worry."

He gets up and ruffles Molly's hair, the way he did Simon's, and Monty's – the way he'd like to have ruffled Claire's, when she was this kid's age. A protective feeling comes over him, and he looks Molly in the eye when he thanks her.

"I gave you something," Parkman says, arms folded. "Tell me who attacked you, Mrs Petrelli."

They went over this in the station, but this time Ma softens, barely perceptibly, and nods. "When I have my granddaughter."

Parkman looks surprised, probably as surprised as Nathan feels. Unperturbed, Ma starts pulling on her gloves. Nathan fetches her coat and helps her on with it, pretending not to hear Molly's whispered enquiries to Parkman.

"How is she that girl's grandma?"

He assures her, in an undertone, that he'll tell her later. Nathan wonders what he's going to say, then wonders at himself for just assuming that Parkman would tell Molly a lie. _This family_, he thinks. _It's built on lies. What happens when we take the lies away?_

"Is that girl related to that guy that was gonna explode? But he's that guy's brother, right? And she's that guy's mom? I thought he was her boyfriend," Molly persists, and Parkman darts a furtive glance at Nathan.

"Not now," he tells her.

And –

"Have a nice flight," he tells Ma and Nathan, shaking their hands. But he won't quite meet Nathan's eye, and Nathan wonders, sickly, what Parkman's heard tonight.

_If he thinks anything_ – hurtling through icy, pitch-black air, Ma clasped tight to him, her face against his shoulder _– if he heard anything, he won't think Peter's still alive. He'll think it happened before. And he won't talk about it; he's not the type._

But Nathan's still troubled. He kind of wants to go back to Parkman and tell him they didn't know, to make excuses for them – he's made endless excuses for them, the past couple days, knowing that it wasn't their fault but still, in his heart, blaming them. But now he thinks Parkman's going to blame them, too, and he can't stand the thought of that.

Claire was meant to be his – Claire and Meredith. If he hadn't let them go they would have been his, and Pete – ten when Claire was born – would have seen her like a little sister, grown up with her. Somewhere along the line Meredith would have left Nathan, like the first time, leaving him free to marry Heidi and have his boys, too. They would have been a family, and maybe with a golden granddaughter to dote on Dad wouldn't have done what he did . . .

But that doesn't mean anything, none of it. Some stupid ideal family Nathan's dreamed up, and he's going off topic now and it's an effort, with the thought of Dad fresh in his mind, to bring himself back to the point, which is –

That it could have been different. That Peter and Claire could have met as goofy kid and baby niece, not as a pair of troubled, lonely young adults, connecting instinctively but not knowing why. Or how.

And Nathan wants to pour all that out to Parkman in one huge barrage of excuses, reasons. Why? Why . . . because Parkman can't be allowed to blame Peter and Claire for the way they light up when they're around each other. For anything they've done. Parkman can't be allowed to think the terrible things of Peter and Claire that Nathan thinks_. Oh, God._

_God_.

Then Nathan stops thinking altogether, flying faster and faster through the night, lower still and lower as he approaches his destination, and lets the cold wind whip away his thoughts. God's not listening.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews! I missed Iagus's review which asked about Peter's dream, but that's going to come clear in – probably – the next chapter. Since this fic is now going to be a big long story, expect the chapters to get longer and longer too. Hope you're all still enjoying it!

**11**

Dad's been quiet all day. Thoughtful, and worried. Claire knows he didn't notice her absence last night because he would definitely have called her on it. And it's not about the car getting stolen, either. They went over that, and over it again, and then again with Mom a couple of times, and between the shouting and the disappointment Claire felt – actually, relieved. She didn't deserve a car as a birthday present; she deserved to go to _jail_. Being yelled at took some of the guilt away, even if the guilt and the yelling were about totally different things.

Now she feels better. Cleansed, kind of. But tonight Dad's mood's been getting steadily darker, and Claire worries: it's not about the car. And it's not about West. And because their lives are so _monumentally_ fucked up these days, that still leaves a whole lot of options, none of them good.

She wonders – insanely – if it's Sylar.

XxX

They're sitting around watching TV when the knock comes at the door. It's nighttime; no one's expected. Dad goes very still.

"Into the office," he says, very quietly.

Mom, Lyle and Claire get up and move softly toward the office. Claire's the last one in, and as she shuts the door, she sees her dad take a gun from the drawer of the side table.

The door opens, and there's silence. Claire looks at Peter, standing ready, and sees a faint pattern of blue light flickering along his palms. He doesn't seem aware of it and it shocks her – horror rises up in her and she imagines the light growing, and glowing, and Peter staring at his hands and then at her, the gun between them –

"Get inside," Dad says curtly. The door closes and the light's gone. Claire almost wonders if she imagined it; Mom and Lyle don't seem to have noticed anything.

Mom opens the office door at Dad's command and _they're_ there, improbably, standing in the middle of Claire's living room like a couple of ghosts. Nathan's cleaned up and Angela's white, doing her imperial best not to shiver, and her face is all scratched and Dad is staring angrily at them both.

"What the hell are you doing here," he asks, and says some stuff about the house being watched, but no one's really listening, despite the fact that he's Dad and he's angry and he's got a gun. Nathan's looking past Claire with his soul in his eyes, and Peter's pushing past her and then they're hugging, and it's like there's no one else in the room.

"_Nathan_, oh God. _Ma_."

There's a lot of hugging, and exclamations, and tears shining in people's eyes, and Claire's own vision gets kind of fuzzy for a minute. She blinks, furiously, and keeps it together while introductions are made – even when Peter starts and looks like he's been hit by a truck and holds onto the table for balance, and she can see the memory exploding in him. That blue light flickers again, tracing the outline of his hands, and this time Claire's sure she's not imagining it. Angela touches his shoulder and a tiny crackling light jumps out to her, throwing her hand violently away.

"Peter," she says, undaunted, taking his arm and stroking it, gently. "Calm down now. It's all right."

Peter closes his eyes and breathes, slowly. The house lights flicker violently, and go out. Sparks fly briefly in the darkness and Mr Muggles barks shrilly once – twice – before the lights come on again.

But now the crackling blue light's gone and it's just Peter, pale but normal, with his mother patting his arm and looking at him as though she'd never planned to make him a murderer. Mom's holding Lyle to her and she's caught Claire's arm and they're staring, stock-still in the silence.

"Get your stuff," Dad says to them angrily, and then turns on Nathan. "They're watching the _house_, Petrelli; they're going to be here any minute. Do you have any idea what you've done, coming here like this?"

Nathan says, "How long have you had my brother?"

"No," Peter says, raising his eyes from the tabletop. Angela's hand with its long red nails steadies him, but he looks clear now. Together. Himself again, in a way that makes Claire want to pack her stuff like Dad said and run away and never come back. Peter shakes his head. "No, it's not the Company. It's just some kid watching Claire, I saw him the first night I came here."

"A kid?" Dad says, incredulously.

"A flying kid," Peter clarifies.

"_West?_"

It just slips out, and suddenly all eyes are on Claire. But she can't believe it – he's been _spying_ on her? That's so – creepy.

Dad puts the gun down. "You're sure?"

"Yeah."

"And you didn't tell me?"

Peter just raises an eyebrow.

"And _you?_"

"This guy – said he could fly. It was just this thing, a stupid argument, and then he _hovered_… I didn't tell him anything." Claire says, hardly knowing what she's saying.

So that's all it was, and all the secrecy, the careful routine, the hiding of secrets behind closed curtains was all for the benefit of creepy West being a huge creep. It occurs to Claire that if it weren't for Dad's suspicion, Peter would never have had to spend that first night in her room. None of this would have happened. Nathan wouldn't be looking at her like that, with that awful sympathy – Claire wouldn't be avoiding Peter's gaze right now, scared of what she might see.

"So why are you here?" Dad asks Nathan. He's relaxed a little now that they're not expecting the Company to bust open the door, but he's still hostile, and as the Bennets and the Petrellis seat themselves on opposite sides of the living room it feels like a line's being drawn. Claire stays standing.

"Someone tried to kill Ma," Nathan says. "Same person who killed Kaito Nakamura."

Claire notices Mom look at Dad, warningly, and doesn't know what it means.

"We came here for Claire," Angela says coolly. For a near-miss murder victim, or for a woman who's just got her dead son back, she's very composed. "She needs to be with her family."

"Claire _is_ with her family," Mom says, affronted. "My husband went to a whole lot of trouble to make us disappear, to hide Claire from the Company, and now you want to take her to New York? Again? Where they can come and get her any time they want?"

She's getting herself worked up, but Dad puts his hand on her knee in a quieting gesture. He's got the Plan look again.

But Claire doesn't want to wait to hear what he's got to say. Suddenly the weight of it overpowers her – there's _their_ presence in her home to start with, those Petrellis, with their resemblances to each other and their familiarity and their wrongness, their horrible out-of-placeness in this small town far far away from New York and its terrible secrets – and then there's _him_.

Peter, watching her with that dark, determined look he gets when he means to force a confrontation.

_We need to talk._

Claire needs to run. But if she does, she knows Peter's just going to follow. Get her alone somewhere, and _make_ her talk – or just talk to her, which would be just as bad because what the hell can Peter have to say to her right now?

That's _Peter_ over there. The real Peter – and, because he said it himself, she feels that she can do it too – _her_ Peter. The guy she trusts absolutely, the best friend she never knew she needed so badly until he showed up, and smiled at her. And trusted her, too.

She's so sorry. She's just so sorry.

But he doesn't know, and she'll never tell him, can't ever tell him about the four months between Kirby Plaza and his return. How she spent those four months seeing the world through panes of dirty glass and hearing people talking like they were separated from her by six feet of earth – or by thousands of miles of sky. Being normal and balanced and okay, because when all her energy went into keeping up the pretence it didn't leave so much room for thoughts of Peter; four months of thinking about anything but Peter as much as she could, because when she did the pain was overwhelming. She'd only known him a couple weeks, and the loss drowned her.

_I miss him too_, she said to Nathan.

And Nathan hung up, because Nathan didn't have any more idea of those four terrible months than Claire's family did.

But maybe he does now.

"I have something to show you," Dad says. "All of you." He looks like he would by far prefer to keep his secrets, but Mom's nodding encouragingly and leads the way into the office. Dad sits down at the computer desk and they stand behind him, moving around to make sure everyone can get a good view of the screen. It's awkward. Mom clearly doesn't want to be anywhere near Angela; with dad sitting down, Nathan towers over the rest of them, which feels weird for reasons Claire doesn't understand – and she's standing on the opposite end of the group from Peter.

When they're ready, Dad begins. He tells them about Isaac Mendez's eight hidden paintings, and about his unnamed 'man on the inside' who's been working to find them. He shows them the first painting – a man lying in a pool of blood.

"Kaito Nakamura."

It passes without comment. They've all seen the papers, even Claire and Lyle saw the front page.

"Today we found number eight."

For a second, Claire can't process the next image. She sees the glasses first and wonders why they're broken; sees the twisted hand and links it to the twisted body at the foot of the building. Sees a skirt and remembers being glad hers wasn't pleated. And then it all falls together.

And then it all falls apart.

It's _Dad_, and he's shot and he's _dead, _and in the background Claire's _kissing_ some dark-haired guy and it could be anyone, but it's not. Her knees feel weak and her brain swims with it, seeing the awful simplicity of the painting, just like a panel in a comic book. She looks at Peter, can't help it, and he's looking back at her.

Dad turns around in his chair, and Claire realises everyone's looking at them.

"Oh I see," Angela says acidly, "Peter shoots you and runs away with his own niece. How obvious."

Claire drops Peter's gaze like it burns her. Which it does. She can feel his eyes still on her, and it's almost like he's touching her: her cheeks are hot, and though Angela's sarcasm was sharp enough to cut glass she's so afraid of how this looks to them.

"It could be anyone - "

Dad interrupts Nathan with more force than seems necessary. "No one's saying that it's Peter. No one's saying that any of this is going to happen – or that if it does, that what we're seeing here is the whole picture."

"I didn't die at Homecoming," Claire says.

"Neither did I," says Peter, folding his arms and – finally – looking away from her.

"Maybe Dad can do it too," Lyle says, sounding shell-shocked. "Maybe he's got a power, and it starts after - "

"No, honey." Mom says gently. She puts a hand on his sandy head and strokes his hair. Lyle just keeps staring at the picture.

"Isaac painted the future," Dad says to Lyle, "But it wasn't always as it seemed. Our actions can still change the timeline; Peter proved that at Claire's homecoming – and again at Kirby Plaza."

"The future's not written in stone," Nathan says, softly, to himself.

There's a long, quiet moment as they all regard Painting 8/8.

Angela's the first one to break the silence. She turns and directs Nathan toward the door, leading them all out into the living room. "Well, I think that's enough for tonight," she says briskly, picking up her gloves. "We'll find a hotel and come back in the morning. I'm sure you have a lot to talk about – and so do we."

"Claire's not going to New York," Dad says firmly.

Angela looks him up and down, and even though her face is all scratched up and she's as white as a sheet, she doesn't look remotely like a victim. "You may not always be around to protect her," she says, with deliberate cruelty.

Claire hates her for this. For everything. Mom, holding Lyle, looks like she wants to say something; Dad's lips are pressed together in a firm line. And then Peter moves in to break up the tension.

"Ma's right," he says, and it's clear he's not referring to her last comment. "We should let you guys… we should give you a moment."

Peter shakes Dad's hand. "Noah. Thank you for everything."

"Glad to see the man I knew," Dad replies, nodding. He's not looking at Angela.

Peter shakes hands with Mom, too, and then with Lyle, who barely seems to notice. And then he turns to Claire.

She's forced to meet his eyes – but, amazingly, there's no hatred in them. "Claire," he says, and his mouth quirks in a bittersweet smile.

"Peter. I missed you," Claire replies, and before she can say anything else he draws her into his arms and hugs her tightly. She hugs him back, burying her face in his shirt, and just for this moment the world's shut out and everything has come down to Peter's strong arms and the hot tears that she can't allow to escape.

Reluctantly, he lets her go.

"I'm glad you're yourself again," Claire says, echoing Dad's words, and hopefully imbuing them with a message Peter will understand. _Now you understand what we did, and you know why I can't come to New York_.

Hard as it is – and it is so hard, she can barely manage it – Claire lets him go. Cross the room to join his family, to say goodbye, to walk out the door.

And then he's gone.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks so much for the reviews. I had to scrap lots of the story and start again, because I just hate season two so much, which is why it's been so long since I updated last. But the story is on its feet and running again! I hope you enjoy it.

**12**

Peter Petrelli looks at himself in the bathroom mirror, and he doesn't look away. This might be the hardest thing he has ever had to do.

He knows everything now. And the magnitude of it, the total irreversibility of what he's done overwhelms him. The memories his amnesiac self had replayed over and over in that house are stripped of their warmth. That one honest night, when they'd done only what they'd wanted to from the beginning – Claire, looking up at him, her fingers moving tenderly through his hair –

He drops his own gaze. Then forces it up again.

_No._ Look. See yourself, Peter Petrelli.

Healer, Hero. The man who only wanted to help people, to save them. He is brutal, as he must be now, and so, staring into his own dark eyes, he says it.

"I raped her."

So quiet he can barely hear himself. His sixteen year old niece. A girl who trusted him. She'd called him her hero. Sitting in the police station covered in blood, and he can't tell which scarlet stains are his, and which are hers. Peter feels sick, his last hug from Claire lingering on his skin, in his heart, staining him red.

She'd been right to say those things to him. Sleeping with an underage girl in her parents' house… but they hadn't _slept together_. Peter had raped her. A minor, a child, Nathan's child. His niece. Her hero.

_You call it destiny?_

And everything he's ever done with her is wrong now. All those moments that felt so perfect are wrong. And all those moments that crushed his heart and whipped the breath from him are _right_ – letting her walk away. Telling her to go, to run. Calling her his niece for the first time, and the look she gave him, then, though it had had to be said.

Having her lie to him.

His stupid idealism seems very far away, now. _When I saw you, I knew you were mine… I had a dream._ Everything they'd fought so hard for had gone wrong, in hundreds of tiny, irreversible ways, and they were sinking, Peter and Nathan, and there was no help coming. The only thing he could do was rise, and trust his heart to a flimsy lifeboat and the man in the horn-rimmed glasses.

And then Nathan, and the Company, and Adam Munroe, and Elle – and his body and mind had been stuck in that cell, but his heart had been safe. Hidden hundreds of miles away. And nothing they'd done to him had mattered.

Adam – he should probably get to Adam. Adam would be looking for him. And, Elle, too –

From the sink. To the mirror. His eyes again, and Peter is honest, again. Elle. Elle, with her blonde ponytail, and he knows, of course, had known even at the time why it had been so easy to fool her.

_Because you wanted your niece._

He shuts his eyes. He can't look anymore. He was supposed to keep her safe. And he goes around and around in his mind, stuck in a loop, a nightmare – the simplicity of it, saving the world. Facing Sylar in the Plaza. Facing Claire. How it had felt like the same thing.

And around it goes. Simple comic book silhouettes and blank spaces where the dead girls are supposed to be. And underneath all of it, Peter remembers every time he ever touched her – from taking her hand, her arm, pulling her away from danger – to taking off her sock, because he can't stand even that thin piece of cloth between them.

God, taking off Claire's sock. How can he be this way?

Ma and Nathan are talking in the other room. Quietly. Silent Ma, whose thoughts he's never been able to hear. It had hurt so much, his memories burning away. It had hurt so much, having them all spill back. Ma tells Nathan Claire's perfectly safe where she is, and Nathan asks her what it is she wants. They've never known, her boys. It's never occurred to Peter to try and hear her thoughts, but of course he can't. He's never been able to.

Nathan is reciting prayers, nursery rhymes, the Pledge of Allegiance in his mind. Peter can't pick up anything behind it, but the fact that he's doing it at all says everything. Clever trick. He can't clear his mind. He doesn't want to see Nathan, maybe not for a hundred years. And yet it's better than Claire's real father knowing – he thinks about Noah – _I'll put you down myself._ That had been _kindness_. He wants to laugh, or maybe to scream.

The door opens quietly.

Ma looks at him with soft eyes. She strokes his arm, gently, like before. His forehead, like she did when he had a fever and couldn't sleep. Her red nails in his peripheral vision are a memory older than conscious thought. For a second Peter just gives himself up to it, and all the looping thoughts become good ones. The shame falls away and he feels Claire and Nathan both in his heart, reconciled. Just love, after all.

And then Ma stands back and lets him pace. Peter forgets what he thought a moment ago. Feels comfort, and knows that somehow it's all going to be okay, though his mind protests, presenting the evidence against again. But he can think clearly now.

"Say goodbye." Ma advises. Yes. He should.

By the time Peter gets to the Bennet house the cool night has cleared him, cleansed him. The lights are all still on and he's surprised, when he sees Claire's alarm clock, to find that it's not three in the morning at all – it's just ten. Peter puts his gift down on her desk. It's the first thing she sees when she walks through the door.

Claire stops. He can see her back, her long hair, and tries to imagine her expression. Slowly, she approaches the desk. Her fingers graze the cheap plastic. The fake jewels on the silver crown wink in the low light. She turns around. She hasn't picked it up.

"You were the Homecoming Queen," Peter says. "But you never got your crown."

"I didn't think you'd want to see me."

That hurts.

"I'll always want to see you," he says, but bites back the rest of it. _If you shot me I'd die happy, seeing you. The day I saw your picture, my life came together._ All these things he's poured into the gift of a plastic tiara, shut away, mute but pleading. Everything he can't say is in it.

She shakes her head, and Peter knows she's going to say something stupid, pointless. A cliché. Like: _You shouldn't be here_. Something people say in movies when they don't feel anything real. But he does. They do. It hurts like drowning, water so cold it burns. Claire's pink and her eyes are wet. There's a terrible weight on his chest crushing the life from him, and he feels like it would go away in a second if he could just find the right thing to say to Claire now. Just hold her. Like if he held her now, took her in his arms, destiny would lock into place and the world would rearrange itself around them.

Instead, Peter feels like he's dying.

He means to say _Don't_, to cut her off, but what comes out is: "Come here."

"No."

It hurts. But it's right. Claire's right.

And the only way Peter can tell anymore what's good, what's right, is to see if it hurts. Claire looks at him like she learned that a long time ago.

"You have to go." Claire says quietly.

He knows. But a thought rises out of her, whispers in his mind. _It hurts_, Claire is thinking. _It hurts, it hurts. It hurts._

"It hurts," Peter says. He doesn't mean to.

Claire looks at him steadily.

"We heal."

And that's the end. Their next goodbye will be in front of their families, quiet, polite. For this one Claire has nothing she can give him but her honesty. And it hurts. That means it's right.

Claire's right.

They heal.

The next morning blood and bone are smashed and torn beyond repair. The pain is as fresh as ever. Nothing has knit together. They heal. But Peter wonders how long it will take.

Spilt blood in her heart, in her strained expression, his heart torn to shreds and once again, Peter can't tell which wounds are hers and which are his. Noah and Sandra and Lyle are saying goodbye to him. He can barely hear them. Peter wants to do something, and though he knows its stupid, and though Nathan is reciting and Ma is silent and Noah is thinking in _Japanese_ and that alone should scare him, he does it.

Peter takes Claire's hand and presses his necklace into it. "For your birthday," he says, looking down into her eyes. "For a lot of birthdays, I guess."

"Peter, I can't take this."

"It's not much, for seventeen birthdays. The only thing I have right now." Peter tries to make her understand. "I want you to have it. I want you to wear it. I want you – not to forget. One thing. That's all."

Claire takes the necklace. She thanks him. And then she asks her mother to put it on her. Of course she wouldn't have asked him, he knows that, and he knows he couldn't lift her hair right now, brush her neck with his fingertips. Still, it feels good to see the heavy helix around Claire's neck.

And then Nathan cuts in and hugs Claire. Steps right in front of Peter. He's never seen Nathan touch her before, but he hugs his daughter naturally, passing an affectionate hand over her hair as they part. "If anything happens," he says, his gaze lifting to Noah briefly, "You call us."

Noah nods. Claire tries to smile. But it doesn't work.

Ma only says, "Bye, dear." She and Claire hold each other's stare for a moment. Ma has never said she's sorry for what she did. She hasn't mentioned it at all. All the same Peter sees something identical in their resolute expressions, in their different ways of being cruel.

"Time to go, Pete." Nathan says.

Ma smiles at him and touches his cheek. She steps into Nathan's arms and they are gone. And so is Peter.

Funny, he thinks. He hadn't known he could still fly. Hadn't given it a thought.

They rise, and Claire sinks, and very soon Peter can't see the helix at all.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Alex is not the comic book guy, I chose the name (and the glasses) ages ago.

**13**

A week passes. Nathan calls Claire twice to tell her everything's okay in New York. That's two more times than he's ever called her in her life. She gets up, goes to school, comes home, goes to bed. The helix warms to her body and apart from the weight of it, very soon Claire can hardly feel it on her. Mom and Dad look at it sometimes, but they don't say anything. Lyle tells her she should have asked 'the bio-dad' for a new car. Her birthday comes and goes. Nathan calls. Three times now. Creepy West asks her, tentatively, if she'd like to go flying again. She says, "Maybe later."

One day Dad sits her down and asks her what happened between her and Peter. He asks her if they had a fight, but from his tone and the look on his face Claire knows that he knows that wasn't it. Claire tells him Peter tried to kiss her by mistake. It's partly true. Dad's face darkens, and he says, in a level voice, "I see."

She plays up the remorse and the guilt and the awkwardness, and after a little while Dad softens, tells her that he understands, that it's not her fault, and that he knows she and Peter will be friends again. After some prompting, he says he's not mad at Peter. His memory was wiped, after all, and Dad of all people should know how that affects people. He says he's not mad, and Claire pretends to believe him.

Claire keeps busy and tries not to think, taking her ipod with her on the walk to and from school, despite everything Dad says, because it's some kind of distraction and she needs it right now.

On Wednesday, there's a man waiting for her outside the school.

"Claire Butler?" he asks. He's a tall man in a suit. He wears glasses. He doesn't look like a company man.

Warily, she nods.

The man smiles. It's a nice smile. "I'm Alex Manion, Claire. I'm a school psychologist. I hear your car was stolen recently."

Claire relaxes, but not entirely, and shakes the hand he offers her. She thinks he holds it a moment too long, but maybe she's just not used to shaking hands. He asks her if she'd like to talk about it. She means to say no. But pretty soon Dr Manion is coming back from the coffee cart with two cups, and he settles down next to her on the bench and hands her one, and she's agreed to a five minute chat so she guesses she'd better go through with it.

"I'm not really sure why the school thought I'd need a psychologist, Dr Manion," Claire confesses.

"Alex, please." He offers her a disarming smile. "I'm actually not a doctor. Psychiatrists have medical training, they're the ones who push the prozac."

This gets a smile out of her. Claire realises it feels strange to smile, like her face has forgotten what it feels like.

"Theft can be a traumatic experience," Alex says. "I understand you're new to Costa Verde? Had you had the car long?"

"No – about a day. It was a birthday present from my parents."

Alex tells her he's sorry to hear that. He wishes her a happy birthday and guesses she must be seventeen. He says a lot of other things that don't sound much like what Claire imagined a psychologist might say – just chat about how she's finding school, what she likes to do outside of school, what friends she's made here. It's nice to have someone to talk to who isn't part of this whole mess, and Claire finds herself warming to Alex Manion.

She still lies. She doesn't tell him, for instance, that she goes to a certain store at a certain time after school on Mondays for a chocolate milkshake, or that she walks to and from school. She implies instead that her dad picks her up and drops her off most days. And she resolves to skip the milkshakes from now on – just in case. She also doesn't tell him that the cheerleaders are stupid bitches or that creepy West is a huge creep, or that she basically has no friends here. The first part is to protect herself from the Company, if that's who he is. The second part is to protect herself from the school psychologist.

She says instead that she's made friends with a nice guy called West. She says she was a cheerleader at her old school, but she's decided to concentrate on her schoolwork this year, hoping to pull her grades up in time to get into a good college. He asks what schools she's been thinking about, and choosing a name at random, she says NYU. Alex asks if she likes New York. Claire says she's never been.

The five minutes she'd agreed to give him has turned into fifteen, and it's five more minutes before Alex has finished giving her his card, scribbling the number of his cell on the back, and making another appointment for Friday afternoon. He tells her he's happy to meet out the front of the school, or even at the Starbucks down the road. Claire's glad. She doesn't want to be doing this in a guidance counsellor's office. She had enough of that when Jackie died.

It's only much later that she thinks of walking back and saying _Oh hey, Alex, I forgot something._ And telling him everything, from Sylar to Peter. Adoption, bridges, guns, fire, blood on the Homecoming banner, blood on the ground where they never did find Sylar's body. _Oh yeah, and I had sex with my biological uncle while I was underage and he had amnesia._

But still, it's that empty patch of bloody concrete that haunts Claire. She was afraid she'd dream of Peter. Didn't know if she could take it. But all her dreams have been of a faceless man in a cap. All week, every night since Peter left. She dies again and again, and he never speaks, because she's never heard him speak, either. Voiceless in the dark, he kills her. Voiceless in the dark, Claire wakes covered in sweat, her scream never quite escaping to tear the night apart.

Try telling Alex that. He probably trained to deal with breakups and finals stress.

X

A week passes without word from Adam. No Elle, either. Nathan's moved out of Peter's apartment, and they've both gone back to the house – just for now, Peter tells himself. Ma's sticking close to him. He knows she's probably still scared by the attack, which boils his blood when he thinks about it. He and Nathan still haven't found out anything new about it. Matt Parkman's been in contact only to tell them he's got nothing. And Ma stays close to Peter. She barely gives him a moment alone these days. All the same, Peter manages to teleport out to the warehouse in Montreal, first day he's back; he gets Adam's note – _The World is in danger_ – and leaves one of his own, just his number and an initial. On Wednesday afternoon Adam calls.

"I've found Claire Bennet."

This is not what Peter expected to hear. He sits down heavily, listening for Ma's footsteps outside the door. "Claire?"

The voice on the other end of the line is amused. "Didn't you think I'd know about Claire? Poor Elle's always been a bit chatty for a company girl. Besides – a woman with my ability? When you've outlived nine wives, Peter, an indestructible girl doesn't have to be a gorgeous blonde for you to sit up and take notice."

It takes Peter a moment to reply. He doesn't want to say anything he'll regret. But he knows Adam will find the silence itself interesting. "I thought we were saving the world."

"We are." Still a smile in his voice. "I just thought you'd like to know. Weren't you close?"

Peter's had enough. Gives Adam the reaction he wanted, because if he doesn't, Adam's just going to push it until he does. "She's my niece, Adam." He says, in a low voice. "Stay away from her."

"Is she?" Adam sounds genuinely surprised. "Well, that's interesting. She's – what – seventeen? Seeing we're in America, how about I wait a year, then… Uncle Peter."

Through gritted teeth, Peter says, "How about we save the world, Adam."

Adam sighs. "Business before pleasure."

Peter checks himself before he throws the phone at the wall. He tells Adam, in a few words, about the attack on Ma and Kaito's murder.

"Someone's taking out Company founders," Adam concludes. He tells Peter about a woman called Victoria. He knows where to find her. If they can get to her before the killer, she might give them valuable clues. "God knows Angela won't."

"You know my mother?"

Stupid question. "I knew her. You know, she was extraordinarily like your Claire."

Peter cuts Adam off before he can go on. He doesn't like the tone of Adam's voice. He doesn't like the heat in his hands. He fights to control it. "When and where?" Peter asks tersely.

"Monday. I won't come straight to you, think someone's following me."

Peter forces himself to ignore his suspicion that Adam wants to linger in California. His hands look normal, but they're warm, far too warm as he scribbles down the address Adam gives him. "Monday."

Adam turns reflective. His voice lowers. "Being her uncle, and everything… still. Do you ever just _watch_ her walk away? That girl is built for - "

The mirror explodes.

Peter cuts the connection, staring at the glass. Shattered glass everywhere, just beautiful, and there are pieces embedded in the wall and in his arm, in his cooling hands.

"Peter!"

Ma. She stares at the mirror, at the bloodstained shard Peter has pulled from his hand. He just shakes his head.

That night Peter has a dream.

Ma, looking tired and old, is talking quietly to a girl with long dark hair. "It's the virus. We need to move him."

On the couch, a toddler is sleeping fitfully. He's ghostly pale under his dark hair, and the soft skin around his eyes is reddened, bruised. "No." the girl says.

Ma comes closer to the girl. She reaches out. But the girl turns around, and Peter realises it's Claire – older, paler, flinching from Ma. She goes instead to the boy. She kneels by the couch. "No," she says again.

"Claire," Ma says gently. "I've lost a son."

A son.

"It's not the virus."

"We need to move Noah and disinfect the apartment. Pick him up, Claire."

Claire reaches out to the boy. She strokes his sweat-damp hair. Peter can't see her face. "No."

"Claire – "

"Leave us alone, Angela."

Ma looks like she's going to move towards Claire again, or to speak, but she doesn't. Peter can see tears in her eyes. I've lost a son, she said, and he doesn't know if she meant him or Nathan. Ma leaves the room. Peter follows her out into the empty hallway. She closes the door, quietly, and uses a marker from her purse to mark a large red X on the door. She looks at it for a moment. Then she walks down the deserted hallway, past X after X on the front doors.

Peter goes back inside.

Claire is cradling the boy in her arms. She takes him into a bedroom. She lies down on the unmade bed, cuddling her son close to her, his small head rising and falling with her breath, her dark hair stirring with his. She strokes his hair and his small back. She looks at him with dry eyes.

After a while, Claire's hair is still.

Peter wakes struggling for breath, fighting off the covers that have gotten tangled around his legs in the night. He sits bolt upright in bed, staring into the dark. _The virus. I've lost a son._ Noah.

That hallway. His mother.

The future.

He knows this is a true dream, not a symbolic disaster. Somewhere in the future that hallway exists, and that dark-haired girl, and her son. Oh God, he's been so stupid.

Peter dials the number quickly, fumbling with the tiny buttons, and when she answers her voice is thick with sleep. "Peter?"

"You're pregnant," he tells her urgently.

That wakes her up. "_What?_"

"We didn't use anything."

Claire groans. "Peter, for God's sake," she says irritably. "It's four in the morning. I'm not pregnant."

"I had a dream."

"I've been on the pill since I was fourteen. Go to sleep."

"What? Why?"

"My mom insisted. Probably Dad's idea. Go to _sleep_, Peter."

"Get a test."

"Leave me alone."

"Get a test, and I'll hang up."

"Fine. Okay."

But he can't. Softly, so she can pretend she didn't hear it, Peter says, "I love you."

She's quiet for a moment. "I love you too," she says then. "Go to sleep."

He can't go back to sleep. His son is waiting for him. Peter dresses quickly and tries to figure out how to get to the future he dreamt. He's not good at guessing the ages of children. Three years old? Four? But he was sick then. Peter aims for three years from now. So much for time. And in space… Claire. That's obvious. He'll go to Claire. Peter shuts his eyes tight and thinks about her, hard. Three years. Three years.

The hallway.

He did it. Only some of the doors are marked, which means he got here before the dream. Claire's door is unmarked. Before he can think twice about it, Peter knocks.

She answers. And it happens again. "_Peter_, oh my God."

Claire throws herself into his arms. It's brown hair spilling over his hands this time, a long dark strand that will be caught in his fingers when he pulls away, and this time Peter has the sense to bury his face in her hair, and not to let her go until he knows he won't kiss her.

"Oh my God," she says again, pulling away, reaching up to touch his face. "Peter."

Older, but not hollowed out with anguish. Beautiful, her green eyes with that dark hair, her skin paler without the California sun. Claire glows. He can't do this. Peter moves her inside, because she still looks dazed, and he shuts the door behind them and looks around for the boy.

"I came to save you," he tells her. "From the virus."

Claire comes to herself. "The virus?" she shakes her head. "Peter, the virus has taken almost everyone. Where have you been?"

"Three years ago I had a dream. I came forward to stop it. What do you mean, everyone? Ma? Noah?"

"Three years ago you left me." Claire says. When he thinks to check, she's wearing the helix. Three years gone.

"No. I came to you."

She stares at him for a moment. Then she sits down on the couch – the same couch – and tells him to take a seat. "Your mother is alive. Nathan's a senator, we were all protected early on. My dad sent me to New York. He's dead now."

"I'm sorry." There are no toys, no kids' books, no mess in this small apartment. There is a man's aftershave in the air, and books Claire would never read on the shelves. Peter has come too late for Noah.

But he has to ask. "And – our son?"

"Our son? Peter, we don't have a son." Claire looks at him strangely. "There's me and Nathan, and Angela, and Alex. That's all. That's all that's left."

"Who's Alex?"

Despite the longing in her eyes, Claire smiles. "My boyfriend. He's due home any minute. I thought you were him when you knocked. I met him in Costa Verde. We kind of snuck around for a while. And then he followed me to New York. He helped me get through it, when Primatech burned – when Mom and Lyle – I don't know what I would have done without him." Her smile fades. Softly, she says, "I don't know what I'll do without him."

Noah is not his son. Peter can't quite come to terms with the thought. Noah – if he will exist at all – will be the son of the man whose books sit neatly by author name on their shelf.

"Is he sick?"

"No. But the virus – people are dying. Fast. There's no cure. We've been so lucky here, but every time I look at him, Nathan, Angela – "

As the magnitude of it hits Peter – the stats she quotes, the marked front doors – he realises that the way things are going Claire might very soon be the last woman on earth. He thinks, uneasily, of Adam and his nine wives.

Claire gets up and goes into the tiny kitchen. He follows. Watches her make coffee. "Alex. What's he like?"

Claire shrugs. "I guess he's kind of like you," she says, not looking at him. "Older than me. We had to sneak around behind my dad's back in Costa Verde, and I regret that now. I wish my dad had had the chance to meet him. But I was only seventeen, and it seemed so important then. As if any of it really mattered." Then she does look at Peter, and he understands that she's not just talking about her age. Not just talking about Alex.

He hears footsteps in the hall. Claire gives him a small smile, and goes out to get the front door. Peter decides to give her a minute to tell this guy what's going on.

"Hey."

"Hey."

No. He can't help it.

Peter comes out of the kitchen. Claire's at the door. There's a briefcase on the ground. And she's kissing him – easily, comfortably. On her tiptoes to kiss him. A guy in a suit, kissing Claire hello like he does it every day.

Sylar smiles down at her. Then he looks over her head.

And sees Peter.

"You son of a bitch," Peter hisses. Blue lightning arcs from his hands, shatters the mirror, the television, and there is glass everywhere, just beautiful, he thinks it just gets more beautiful every time, and there's a scorched hole in the hallway where Sylar's head was half a second ago.

"Peter!"

He stops. Didn't know he was going to do it, didn't know he'd done it until – there is glass everywhere. Peter holds out his hand and a long shard of mirror leaps into his grasp.

"That is not Peter Petrelli," Sylar says to Claire. He's holding her tightly, but he's looking at Peter. His eyes are dark with satisfaction. "He's a shapeshifter. I've read his file."

"So you're a company man now?" Peter challenges. "_Sylar?_"

And suddenly Peter remembers that little boy with his dark mop of hair, so like his and Nathan's that he never thought twice about it.

Claire's staring at Peter. "Sylar?"

"Don't listen to him. Sylar's dead, Claire, you know that. He's lying to you."

His voice is urgent, but there's a smug smile on his face. Peter wants to wipe that smile off with his fists. And Claire –

Claire is starting to doubt. She's in front of Sylar and he can't get to him without hurting her, and Peter is never going to hurt her. Not again. But she's looking at him like she doesn't know what she's seeing, and Sylar must feel her body shifting because his smile grows.

"Claire. Four months after Kirby Plaza, I came to your window. Three years ago. I never told anyone. Did you? Did you tell him that?"

Claire starts. Sylar's smile twists into a glare of murderous rage. With a snarl he throws her aside, drawing his gun in a smooth, practised movement. Peter charges him. He takes the shot like a punch to the shoulder. The glass shard is whipped from his hand. He tackles Sylar into the hallway. The second shot displaces plaster from the ceiling, and it falls on them like snow. Sylar is struggling in Peter's grip with animal fury. Peter punches him. And again. Any minute he expects a telekinetic blast to pin him to the wall, but it doesn't come, Sylar grabbing Peter's elbow instead and pulling hard, shifting his weight suddenly, sweeping Peter onto his back with a hard smack. He's dropped the gun, and Peter thinks he's reaching for another and the lightning flickers on the edges of his vision. He's going to fry the bastard.

Sylar stabs him.

The mirror –

The lightning goes out. And somewhere far away, Peter realises it wasn't the mirror. In slow motion he feels himself slip away, tranquilliser shooting through his system, and he sees Sylar feel around on the ground behind him and come up with the gun. It feels cold on his forehead.

_This is why I never came back._

_I'm so sorry, Claire._

X

Waking up this time is harder. It's slower, and strangely familiar. It feels like – being drugged. Peter struggles towards the surface, and the voices come clearer.

"All this time. You never said a word."

Sylar throws it back at her. "Like you didn't have anything you kept from me. Three years ago? What exactly happened three years ago that you didn't tell anyone, Claire?"

He sounds angry with her. Peter can't understand it. The cushion is scratchy, and he realises he's lying on the couch. The same couch.

"Don't talk to me about three years," Claire says venomously. "I let you into my _home_. My _bed_. I should kill you."

"You're not going to kill me."

Peter opens his eyes, seeing them through a haze. Sylar is tied securely to a wooden chair. There's blood running down his forehead. Peter realises Claire must have hit him with something, and he feels suddenly, savagely happy. Claire is in the chair opposite, and despite everything Sylar is looking self-satisfied.

"And why's that?" Claire tilts her head.

"Because in case you haven't noticed – and, clearly, you haven't – you haven't had your period since May."

Claire's eyes widen. She stares at him. Then she lunges out of her seat and smacks him hard across the face. Peter's blood fires at the blow. But Sylar is laughing.

She hits him again.

Then she walks away and paces up and down, restlessly. Her eye falls on the coffee table. On the gun.

Sylar follows her gaze and the laughter dies.

"Do it," Peter manages, struggling to sit upright. "Kill him, Claire."

Claire looks at him, helplessly.

"Why did you come back?"

He tries to stand, but it's not going to work, so he just sits there and stares at her. "To save you. I dreamt your son died. He got the virus."

Claire's hand drifts to her flat stomach. May. Peter doesn't know what month it is here, but it's clearly been long enough that Claire's pretty sure she's –

"Our son," she says. "That's what you meant."

Sylar glares at him. It looks like – good Lord. It is. It's jealousy.

"Sylar. You never tried to take my ability."

"My powers are gone." He tilts his head. Like Claire. Or maybe Claire did it like him. "I thought about it. I can understand the powers, I just can't manifest them. I thought about opening up your skull, and trying to think fast enough to heal whatever it is that they did to me."

"Why didn't you."

"_Claire_," Peter says. "The gun."

"I didn't know if you'd survive it."

"Bullshit." Claire spits.

Sylar smiles. He likes this, Peter can tell he does. He wants her to demand the truth. "I didn't know if it would work. The virus hasn't touched me yet – but if it does…"

"Claire, pick up the gun and shoot him in the back of the head. _Pick it up_."

She ignores him. And he can't make it to the coffee table yet. Peter looks at the gun and wants it, with everything he's got. The gun moves. Just a little.

"I would have given you anything," Claire says, in low, impassioned tones.

"You still might."

She stops her pacing and stands still, her arms folded. Slowly, she turns her head to look at Sylar. Blood on his forehead and on his mouth, blood matted in his hair and bruises rising on his cheek. He looks up at her from under his eyebrows like he knows what she's going to do. Which is more than Peter does.

Three years, he thinks. We had days.

The gun slides. Slowly. Hesitantly. But then Claire comes over to the table and picks it up. She holds it like her father's daughter. Peter tries to summon the strength for electricity, or _something_, but Claire isn't even looking at him. She throws the gun over to the briefcase and Peter slumps. His head is swimming and he'll never be able to get it now.

"Go home, Peter."

"What?" He can't have heard her right. She can't have told him to go home.

"Go home, and stop this from ever happening." Claire says. "That's all you can do for me now. For us."

Go home? How can he go home when he can't even stand?

"What about him?"

Claire sighs. She looks utterly defeated. "This is my life now. A world with no Peter. No parents, no brother. And I have to do what I can with it." She leans down and touches his face again. Her eyes are locked with his. "Don't let this happen again."

"_Sylar_."

The sadness on her face is unbearable. "Sylar is my problem. Go home to me, Peter. Please. Go home."

And he thinks of her – younger, that long blonde hair, her eyes and her smile – and Peter knows he'll always be able to go home to Claire. This older one kisses him. It's sweet, and strange, and sad. And then she moves away, and starts to untie Sylar. Doing what she can, untying the monster she loves. He won't let this happen again. He can't. Sylar's eyes gleam with triumph, and Peter knows what he's going to do to him when he finds him – at home.

Home. To Claire.

"Goodbye, Claire."

"Goodbye, Peter." Claire says. That sadness. "I always loved you."


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews! Again, if you're in two minds about reviewing, take a moment to do it. It really makes my day.

**14**

There's a flicker of her and him, looking at each other, and he's thinking so hard about Claire but as soon as her dark hair leaves him Peter can't see where he's going. This happens in the barest fraction of an instant. Just enough time to throw him off. And when he opens his eyes he's at home – at Nathan's home – and he staggers and grabs at the curtain, pulling the whole thing down with a _tick-tick-tick_ of tiny metal fastenings tearing off the brass curtain rod. The floor. _Claire_. He wants to go to Claire. Not the floor.

But he has nothing. His vision swims. Whatever it is that bastard injected him with is rising up again and drowning him. Peter tears at his shirt, trying to find the mark, and as he hears the rhythmic thud of footsteps hurrying down the stairs he finds the two red puncture marks. Two. His nerveless fingers drop from the fabric.

"Peter!"

Nathan in his pyjamas. Ma in her robe, her hair messy the way Peter never sees it. He blinks and his eyes don't seem to want to open again, but he forces them, uses everything he's got to open his eyes again. Two marks. They're not healing.

"The future," he slurs. "Alex. He calls himself. The _virus_."

Oh God, no. He's slipping. He tries to bring Claire to mind again, to use whatever scraps of empathy he might have left to use her ability, but without her actual presence he can't…

Eyes, hair, voice. Touch.

"… they do? What's happening to him?" Nathan demands.

"I don't know," Ma claims, and – he thinks…

Peter. Thinks.

She sounds scared.

Lying.

"_Claire_." Someone moans.

Red nails. Peace.

X

It's all posture, Claire thinks, looking critically at herself in the mirror. Regeneration strips you of the dark circles you earn during a night like last night – you get healthy colour in your cheeks, instead, and even your hair bounces back. But posture gives it away.

She tries going clean, feet together, arms at her sides, back straight and chest up, with a big cheerleader smile on her face. Tries a clasp. Strong, tight. Looks perfect. But it's not like she can go to school like that, so she relaxes and tries to make smaller changes. There – if she keeps her chin up, her back sort of naturally straightens, and if she relaxes her hands, her arms don't look quite so tense – but something in it all reminds her of Angela, looking down her nose at the world like that. Claire decides she'd rather look a wreck than remind anyone of Angela. Especially her parents. Especially herself.

She's walking to school and she's far too early. That can happen when you wake up at four, after a series of increasingly violent nightmares broken by a panicked pregnancy scare from your uncle, and you're too scared – of a lot of things – to go back to sleep. So she detours to Starbucks. Some guy holds the door open for her, and when she looks up she's surprisingly pleased to see that it's Alex.

"Claire! It's good to see you," he says warmly, like he means it. Then he runs his eyes over her, and frowns. "Is something wrong?"

He guides her to a table, his hand on the small of her back, and it feels strange but not in a wholly unlikeable way. She's so tired. And so lost. And he's there, and he's listening, and for some stupid reason Claire finds herself admitting it. "I haven't been sleeping well. Nightmares."

"What about?"

An impromptu therapy session at eight in the morning, just what the doctor ordered. But she has to tell somebody. "A man I used to know," Claire says, not caring how it sounds, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I mean, I didn't really know him. But these nightmares, it's like… it used to be only sometimes. But this last week, it's been every single night, and last night – " She sighs. "I woke up. Over and over. And every time I went back to sleep, he was there. Waiting for me."

Alex has leant closer to her over the table as her voice has lowered, and when she looks up, the gleam of intense interest in his eyes is disconcerting. "You dream about Sylar every night?"

Claire goes cold.

Alex seems to realise what he's said, and while she's frantically trying to remember where the exits are, not daring to take her eyes off his, he leans back and holds up both his hands. "No, no, no. It's not what you think. I'm not Company. I swear."

"Why should I believe you?" School psychologist! And she's told him things – lies, but what does it matter? "If you try _anything_ I swear to _God_ I will make such a scene they'll call the cops."

Alex shakes his head, leaning back closer to her, and instinctively, she leans away. He looks pained. "Claire, they _own_ the cops," he says. Then he starts a rapid explanation in a low voice. "Look, I'm not from them. Okay? I _escaped_ from them. They were holding me somewhere in Mexico – they took my ability. I read your file, and when I escaped, some people picked me up and in the glove compartment of their car I found this."

She thinks it's going to be a syringe and gets ready to bolt, but what he takes from his inside pocket is a small card. Her driver's license. She stares at it, in his hands, not wanting to take it. Her own image. Her new name. Taken from her stolen car. "I came to find you, and I saw you, and I knew who you were and I had to talk to you. I'm sorry I lied. But I panicked. I didn't want you to run away."

He sounds so sincere. But for some reason, Claire can't picture Alex Manion panicking. "What could you do?"

"I could melt metal." He shrugs. "Not a very dangerous ability," he says bitterly. "But they took me and stripped me of it."

"So you're hiding from them?"

He nods. "Them, and Sylar."

Something about the way he says that name… His eyes do something. Narrow a little. The way people's eyes do when they're smiling real smiles. "Why would he be after you? If you don't have an ability anymore, I mean."

If he's read her file, he doesn't need a reason to be scared of Sylar. He's killed people before for abilities they didn't even have. But, still. Something's not right.

"Look." Alex reaches across the table for her hand, which she pulls away. He looks mildly disappointed. "I'm going to go get us some coffee. Okay? And you can sit there, or you can run away. I'm not the Company, I'm not going to chase you. But, Claire. I really hope you don't run."

That, at least, sounds like the truth. Wondering if she should even be doing this, or if she should be calling the cops herself – no, if the Company owns them, she guesses maybe not the cops. But Dad. Or Peter. Or _someone_ – Claire finds herself staying in her seat, watching Alex order for both of them. He waits for the coffee by the counter. Giving her space. Time. She should be relaxing at this display of trust. But something in the way he looks at her…

Of course, Claire rationalises, she's been wary of that look since Brody. Hunger isn't necessarily something… complicated. And as Alex comes back, coffee held out like a peace offering, Claire thinks that maybe she needs something uncomplicated right now.

Still, she can't relax. She drinks, letting the heat sear her mouth, her throat, feeling the tissue reconnect smooth as silk. Alex goes to stop her, then sits back.

"That's right," he says softly. "You can heal. A little hot coffee should be no problem for you."

The cup in her hand is very briefly full of weak, lukewarm beer.

Claire drinks the whole thing. Even though she feels like there isn't enough caffeine in the world to deal with a day like today. She sets the empty cup down with a clatter. "I should get to school."

"It's still early. Besides – you look so tired. Maybe you should go home and sleep."

His voice is very – soothing. She _is_ so tired. Claire's immortal brain doesn't need sleep to do its job, but her mind needs it, and right now her mind is so fuzzy, and she thinks that nothing in the world sounds nicer than putting her pyjamas back on and crawling back into bed. Slipping between cool sheets. She almost feels like –

She feels like she can't feel her feet. That's not – usual. Claire opens her eyes, with the frightening realisation that somewhere along the line there they had drifted shut. Alex is lifting his cup.

"Stop!" she says, urgently. "Don't drink it. It's drugged."

His eyes widen in alarm. "The Company?"

"You have to get out of here."

"I'm not leaving you."

Alex is firm. He comes and slides a strong arm around her waist, helping Claire out of her seat, out of the store. It's so busy in here. Claire fights to keep her eyes open, to look conscious, so no one gets suspicious and calls the cops. Don't they own the cops?

In the front seat of a car. Not her stolen car. Didn't her dad have trouble with the police before? Uneasily, Claire wonders whether calling the cops might not have been such a bad idea. Surely the Company doesn't control _all_ the cops. Her body is fighting the drug and she clings to consciousness.

"I have to get home. Do you know where I live?" Home, Mom is at home. Mom can call Dad.

"I know where you live, Claire." Alex sounds amused. Relaxed. Not at all like he was a moment ago. He looks over at her and gives her a smile. "It's on your license. An amazing piece of luck – the very first car that picks me up has you, in the glove compartment. Gift-wrapped."

No. This is wrong. He's not from the Company. But there is something so wrong here, Claire can't bring herself to –

Alex glances at her. "Is it _really_ that hard to figure out, Claire Bear?"

He takes the glasses off and tosses them casually at her feet. He looks like he's enjoying himself, even laughing a little at her expression, and her dazed mind is begging no, oh God no.

It can't be.

Claire marshals everything she's got and gets ready to throw herself at him. She'll spin this car through the traffic and kill them both, and _run_ – Sylar looks at her.

He takes a hand off the wheel and pushes her back down into her seat. "Nothing like that," he warns. "I'm not Brody."

Deftly, he fastens the seatbelt he'd neglected to put on her earlier, never taking his eyes off the road. Panic fights the drug. Claire fights the drug.

"I did read your file," he says, off-hand. "A different time. And I have to say, Claire, the whole Brody incident really did make me see you in a different light. Manipulative, ruthless, vengeful – I liked it. Reminds me of me."

"I'm not like you, Sylar." Claire hisses, doing her damnedest to keep a slur out of her voice, her head lolling drunkenly on the back of the seat. Sylar smiles.

"I always like hearing that name – but from you, it just sounds… so… _special_." He looks at her, and something that makes Claire's skin crawl passes between them. "I think I'm going to miss you."

Her phone is in her bag, at the store – no. Her phone is in her jacket pocket. But he's watching the road again, and he hasn't seen the realisation on her face, and she can't let him see it. She rolls in her seat, trying to make it look like she's struggling to get upright, but her side is now turned towards the back of the seat and her hand is inching towards her pocket. Sylar darts a glance at her. Apparently satisfied that she's not trying anything, he pulls into a driveway. Low in her seat, Claire can't see where they are, but it's not her house. It's the house where she will _die_ if she doesn't do something.

_The phone. Peter. _

Peter first, who can teleport to her in an instant. Take care of Sylar just like he did before… but before she can stop herself, Claire remembers that last time, Peter let Sylar go. He got away. She feels a brief upsurge of anger at Peter. She knows it's not his fault. But –

_The phone. Faster._

But Sylar is already coming round the front of the car, giving the hood a happy little smack, jostling the car. He unfastens the seatbelt and scoops her up effortlessly, and her hand falls away from her pocket and dangles uselessly at the end of her arm, and she could just cry. She struggles, but it's like all her bones are gone.

"Oh, stop it. Don't be such a baby. You won't feel a thing." Sylar pauses, and reflects. Then he shrugs. Claire's arm jerks with the movement. He opens the unlocked front door of the house. "Actually, I don't know that. Maybe you will. I think a lot of people just scream because it's so scary." He continues talking, in conversational tones, as he carries her over the threshold. Some bride, Claire thinks randomly, and then she realises that she's never going to be a bride. Not now. "No one _likes_ getting cut." Sylar informs her, wrongly. "But it's not so bad. When you consider that there are no pain receptors in the brain and that the blood loss and the shock get most people before any of _that_ starts anyway, I think you'll agree that there are far worse ways to go."

"My father will find you," Claire begins viciously. Sylar sets her down gently on a large coffee table, and busies himself with ropes. Skipping ropes, knotted together. Oh, God, this is a family's home. Was. There are toys, and pictures like her mom likes, and some places – like the ceiling – there is blood.

Sylar starts to tie her down, ignoring her impotent struggles. "What's he going to do? Hurt me? And won't he be surprised, when that first gunshot heals over right before his eyes…" Sylar rests a hand on Claire's forehead and looks down at her with genuine affection. "You have no idea how I'm going to enjoy the look on his face when he realises what I've done."

No. She can't bring herself to believe that this is really going to happen. It's like a nightmare, except she can see him, and she can hear him, and he won't stop talking and it's not a nightmare. Peter's not coming. Dad's not coming.

He can't really be doing this. He can't do this.

Sylar disappears from her vision. After a moment, a high-pitched shrieking buzz fills the room, and Claire tries not to remember where she's heard that noise before. When he comes back and she sees the small surgical saw, Claire comes close to passing out. She thrashes against the ropes weakly, and black stars are exploding behind her eyes and someone is panting, shallow, terrified pants like a trapped animal, and with a jolt of hysteria Claire realises that it's her. All those breaths, the ones she'd been so sure she'd live to take. She can't breathe. She can't see. She's going to die and _he can't do this_.

"Ssh." Sylar strokes her face, his fingers coming back wet with tears she didn't know she'd been crying, and she's forcibly reminded of Peter, and Peter,_ where are you?_

"Don't do this. Please, Sylar, don't do this." She begs, hating herself for it, begging him anyway because she has nothing left. "Please don't do this!"

"Lie still, Claire."

"_Sylar!"_

X

When Peter wakes up it all comes back to him at once. He shouts her name, grabbing at the first person he finds, which is Nathan. Peter kicks the blanket off, and he hurts all over, he's bruised, and it's not healing, and he has to get to Claire.

"Pete! Peter," Nathan says, holding his hands where they grasp his suit jacket in a death grip. "What about Claire? What happened?"

"Come on, we have to go," Peter says roughly, pulling Nathan and himself up, out of chair and bed, pushing them towards the window. "Fly."

"Peter – "

"_Fly_! Oh, my God – " He can see bright sunlight through the window. He's been out too long. "Fly, Nathan, get me to Claire, _hurry_."

And Nathan does it. Thank God, he does it. And when they fly the cold hurts Peter like always, but this time he has to bury his face in Nathan's back to stop the wind and the rain tearing at skin that is suddenly so fragile he can't imagine what it was like before, when he took healing for granted. He's so breakable. Why doesn't Nathan realise how breakable they are?

It takes too long to get to Costa Verde. Everything takes too long. Peter tells Nathan what he saw in the future – both times – and when they land Nathan already has his phone out of his pocket, and he's calling Claire but from the look on his face Peter knows something's wrong. "She's not picking up," he says shortly. "I'm going to try Bennet."

Nathan calls Noah. Noah calls Claire's school on the landline at his work. Nathan waits. Peter paces. Nathan's face changes again. "She's not there," he tells Peter. "Bennet's got a GPS tracker in her phone. Hope to God she's got it." To Noah – "You drive. We'll see you there."

Peter tells himself Sylar won't have hurt her. That it's only been a week, only hours since he came back, and in that future Sylar hadn't hurt Claire in three years. But he knows he's wrong. And when the house Nathan takes them to isn't Claire's house, and when he sees the bloody footprints on the empty driveway, Peter knows what's happened.

But when he opens the door it's still a shock.

She's not dead. Relief floods him. But she's just sitting there, unseeing, with dark red blood on her forehead in that line Peter's never seen on a living person, and dark red blood is matted in her hair, drying on her clothes. She's in his arms before he knows he's moved towards her.

"Claire, Claire," he says, can't stop saying, holding her close and squeezing his eyes shut against the fact that she's not moving. That her phone is ringing, has been ringing since they got there, and that she doesn't seem to hear it.

The phone stops. Nathan's answered it. He says something to the person on the other end in a low voice, and then he's come to Peter and he's very gently trying to extricate Claire from his grasp. "Come on, Peter. Give her to me. It's okay, Peter. It's all right. Just let go."

Peter swore he'd never let her go. But he has. He's rocked back on his heels, her blood all over him, and now Nathan's very carefully stroking Claire's arm, smoothing blood away from her eyebrow, and he's looking into her blank face and talking to her.

"It's okay, honey. You're okay now. Sylar's gone. I'm here, and Peter's here." Peter imagines he can see something in her eyes when he says that name, but maybe he doesn't. Nathan's voice goes on, calm and soothing, sure and persuasive. "Your dad's on his way. You're safe again. You can come back now, Claire. It's okay to come back."

After a long while of this, Claire slowly comes back. From wherever she was. She comes back to a room full of bloodied clothes and hair and ropes and men who failed to save her. She looks into Nathan's eyes, and now Peter knows that she can see him. She falls into his arms, and holds on for dear life.

Her fingers are white where she's clutching at him. Peter can see that Nathan's trying not to hold her too tight, not to hurt her, but his eyes are shut and his face is drawn with fury. Peter's never seen him like this. And something in Peter is deeply hurt that Claire is holding _Nathan_, came back for _Nathan_.

And then Bennet's car pulls up with a shriek of tortured wheels, and he's in the house and he's got Claire, and he's looking at Nathan over her head and they wear the exact same expression. All Peter can do is stand there. With Claire's blood on his hands.

It's not until Claire's in her father's arms that she starts to cry.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews, as always, and thanks for everyone who put this story on their alerts. Special thanks today go to my beta, Miss S, for Sandra worrying about all the wrong things. Thanks also to Miss S for never being able to remember the names of Nathan's sons.

**15**

Claire won't tell them what happened.

That's not entirely true. Nathan knows what _happened_, any idiot could figure that one out, and when Sandra very cautiously asks her if Sylar – if he – Nathan can't even think about that, not again. But the point is that when Sandra asks her, Claire says no. And that's all she'll tell them. She doesn't say at what point she went catatonic, and Nathan prays and hopes that it was near the beginning, preferably before that tiny saw got clogged with thick red blood, and long blonde hairs, and little scraps of –

Nathan's on fire with the rage he feels. Didn't know he _could_ feel this much. He can't stop pacing along the narrow hallway. They're outside the bathroom. Even Sandra. And Claire's inside, in the shower, rinsing off the blood and crying, Nathan can hear his daughter crying, and he can't do a single thing about it.

Bennet's standing there with his arms folded. His wife has her little dog in her arms, and she looks down at the dog like she's whispering to it, but from the snatches of words Nathan picks up she's praying, hushed and fervently. Peter's leaning against the wall, staring at the ground, looking like he wants to die. And Nathan is pacing. And all of them, all of them, are stained with Claire's blood. There was so much of it in that room, on her. No one but Claire Bennet could bleed enough to cover two families and live to cry her heart out in the shower.

"We'll get him." Bennet says to Sandra. It's all the comfort he can offer.

But it's Nathan who replies. "We? Who exactly is we? You and me? Peter? Peter's lost his _abilities_, Bennet. Peter can't do a damn thing to stop Sylar, or even to _find_ him, and neither can I. And neither can _you_."

Bennet looks at Peter in surprise, but at that second his phone rings.

"What."

Pause.

"Send it over." Pause. "No, I understand. She's here. Safe." Bennet turns away, but Nathan can hear the bitterness in his voice. "It's already happened."

When he hangs up, he just waits. And after a moment, he's got Painting 2/8 on his phone. Whoever he was talking to has found it too late. Sandra puts her hand over her mouth, and tears come into her eyes. Nathan holds out his hand for the phone. After a pause that sets his teeth on edge, Bennet hands it over.

Oh, no. Seeing it is – Nathan turns away with an angry exclamation, but the image is burned onto his eyelids and he can't unsee it. A girl lying on her back. Open eyes staring at the ceiling. Her head – the top of her skull has been removed and sits neatly under the table, beside a small silver thing all clotted with pieces of her. And seated behind her, long, deft fingers in her brain, a dark figure bends over her. Nathan assumes this is Sylar. He can't remember seeing him before. But he won't forget the cruel face, the heavy eyebrows, and Alex Manion is never going to fool Nathan, not this time. Nathan won't forget any of it. He feels sick with anger. The way Sylar leans so close to Claire that he could kiss her, if he wanted, or – as he seems to be doing – whisper things to her. Nathan hopes to God Claire was gone by then.

"I want to see it."

Peter. Peter, who couldn't save her from this. Peter, who can't heal. Peter, who looks like he's going to do something stupid. "No, you don't." Nathan says firmly.

"Nathan." Peter looks up at him. "I want to see it."

Nathan wants so badly to protect Pete from this, but there's something in his face that makes him hand over the phone without another word. Peter looks at it for a long time.

And then, when Nathan's sure Peter's going to break down in tears, his brother looks up from the phone with grim determination. In a low voice, he says, "I don't need abilities to find that son of a bitch and take him apart."

There's an answering gleam in Bennet's eye. He nods.

Nathan shakes his head. "Look at us." He demands. "You've got a gun. I can fly. We're all mad as hell, but none of that's going to help us. He can move things with his mind, blow up a city if he wants, hell, we don't know the _half_ of what he can do, and now he can heal from anything. We're not going to catch him this way. I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to New York – _all of us _– and then I'm going to Washington and I'm doing what I should have done a long time ago. I'm taking this to the President."

They need resources. Men. Abilities. They need the government to protect the people from Sylar, from people like Sylar. The Company has only managed to contain him, and they're not exactly sympathetic to the Petrellis anymore. Or to Noah Bennet. Bennet and Peter argue with him. They want to keep this secret. They talk about the danger, the experiments, the terror of remaking the Company on a governmental scale. But Nathan knows he's right. They just don't have the firepower to bring in someone like Sylar, to protect other people's daughters from what Nathan's daughter has gone through today, to protect other fathers from this fury that's threatening to take him to pieces.

He never realised that he loved her before.

But now he does. And it changes everything.

The argument only stops when Claire comes out of the bathroom. She's wearing jeans and a grey sweater, and she's pulled her damp hair back into a low bun. There's something of Peter in the way she looks now, that self-loathing, but Nathan is surprised to see that there's more of her father – more of Bennet, that is.

"I can find him. I can find him and trap him. Dad can shoot him in the back of the head. I don't know if that'll kill him for good, but it'll hold him still long enough for us to cremate him."

Bennet and Sandra both look taken aback – but in very different ways. Sandra opens her mouth to speak. But Claire cuts her off. "Mom, I really don't want to hear anything about loving my enemy right now."

It's Nathan and Peter's turn to recoil. Nathan remembers too late that Claire doesn't know about the future Peter saw.

"No, honey. That's not what I was going to say." Sandra says stiffly. "That man is a murderer, and we execute murderers. But it is not your job to catch him."

At this, Bennet is nodding in agreement. And so is Peter. And so, for that matter, would Nathan, if Claire didn't raise her chin and suddenly remind him of his mother.

All she says is, "He can't hurt me anymore."

They follow Claire downstairs. Nathan can't figure out what the strange tone of her voice meant – there was despair, and a deep assurance, and somewhere under it an acceptance of the kind he's only heard from Ma. What is it, he wonders with a sudden chill, that Claire could accept about herself that could make her sound like Ma.

Her brother's in the living room. Staring at the mute TV. And Nathan feels sorry for him, poor kid, he shouldn't have to deal with any of this. None of them should.

And then of course Ma calls, and Nathan has to tell her what happened, and she doesn't sound surprised. Just sad. She demands that he bring Claire home. Looking up at Bennet, Nathan says he's working on it. He's trying to convince Bennet, but once again, Claire takes the discussion into her own hands.

"Either we go to New York and do it there, or Nathan and Peter stay til we're done. It's too risky for us to try to do this alone." She tells Bennet.

There's something in Bennet's face that Nathan can't read. Approval, maybe. She sounds so much like him. And then maybe disapproval and a little fear, because after all she _does_ sound so much like him right now. "You're not doing anything. You're seventeen years old, Claire. Sylar is our business."

"No. _I_ am asking _you_ to help me. If you don't want to, I'll go to New York with Nathan and Peter. If they don't want to help me…" Claire shrugs. "I'll go to Angela. Then I'll go to Matt. Then I'll work my way down the list until everyone's turned me down. Then I'll do it alone."

"No. Absolutely not." Bennet fixes her with that cold Company man stare.

Claire goes to reply, but then her face changes. "Lyle. Turn up the TV."

A kid has been found dead. Recently – within the last hour. A kid Claire knows. A kid Peter knows. "It's that flying kid."

"West." Claire says flatly. "I told him about West. And he killed him. He didn't even know West had an ability. He just killed him because I knew him."

The news leaves no doubt about it. Strange markings, ritual mutilation, an unspecified sharp instrument that Nathan knows is Sylar's rapidly healing brain. He seems to have found out about the ability. Bennet looks angry. "He might as well have signed it." He says in disgust. "The Company will be here any minute. Looks like we're going to New York after all."

He looks at Nathan, who feels this is unfair. He didn't want to win the argument like this. Without another word Claire gets up and heads toward the stairs, Peter following after like she's got him on a string.

"Don't, Claire. Please don't do this." He asks her earnestly.

She stops two steps up, so she can look down at him. Looks into his eyes. That old connection holds between them, that old electricity, and for a moment Claire looks like she's struggling not to go down there, into arms that Nathan knows would open for her now. Would still, and would always open for Claire, to hold her and enfold her, because Peter is nothing if not stupid.

But Claire shakes her head and looks away. Her hand drifts up as if to push back a stray curl. Lingers on her unmarked forehead. "That's what I said to him."

Something breaks inside Peter. Nathan can see it. He stumbles back, reaching for the banister, and Claire goes up the stairs without looking back.

But Peter is nothing if not a hero.

He follows. And Nathan belatedly realises that he has to catch up to them. Someone's going to need to sort out the scene they're going to make, and it can't be Bennet or his wife. "I better take this one," he tells the Bennets. "I know Peter."

He takes the stairs two at a time.

"You weren't _there_ to protect me."

"You sent me away!"

"_I had to."_

They'd be shouting if it weren't so dangerous. When Nathan clears his throat they turn to him. "Am I interrupting?"

Claire says he's not. Peter – who, Nathan reminds himself, doesn't know that he knows damn well _why_ Claire had to send him away – says he is. Claire goes back to throwing things haphazardly into a gym bag. She's mad, and Peter's mad, and they're hurting each other but it's better than before, when Nathan held an indestructible shell that breathed but didn't live. When Peter looked like he might save Sylar the trip and blow his own brains out.

"You can't do this. I know what you're feeling right now, Claire, but you can't go after Sylar. You're not _thinking_ straight."

Quietly, Claire says, "I'm thinking straight for the first time in my life, Peter. I know what's important now."

"Yeah? What's that?" he challenges. Peter folds his arms and gives her that look he uses when he thinks your argument is retarded.

Family is important, Nathan thinks. Love. Wherever you find it.

"What's important is never having anyone do anything like that to me again."

More than her words, the look on her face sends a chill down Nathan's spine.

Peter drops all pretence of it being a rational argument. He goes to her like he can't help it, and Nathan guesses he can't. He holds her upper arms – not quite an embrace. Claire's allowing it.

Nathan's allowing it.

In impassioned tones, Peter says, "I can't let you get hurt again. I just can't. _Please_."

Something changes in her face. And Nathan's scared. Whatever she's going to say, he doesn't want her to say it. It's going to be something terrible and sarcastic, something to do with her awful acceptance, and… it's going to hurt his brother. But she bites it back. And Nathan thinks she might lean into Peter, just slightly, before she steps out of his grasp. She shows him – them – a nail file. The metal kind with a blunt, triangular end, for cleaning dried gore out from under your fingernails. And before anyone can stop her, Claire flips her sleeve back and drags that blunt end across the soft skin of her inner arm. The file cuts awkwardly, painfully through her skin, leaving ragged edges, and Nathan hears the sound Peter makes but it doesn't matter, he's looking at the important thing now and the important thing is Claire's face. There's nothing there.

"Claire," Nathan begins. But – he doesn't know.

"I can't feel anything." He can't see Peter's face right now, but his back is stiffening, and he knows Peter's feeling the horror Nathan feels as Claire goes on. "The water was too hot on my back. But I didn't notice until I saw blisters on my hands. I felt water. No heat. No pain. So I took the file. And I tried – and then I tried again. I feel nothing."

As if to punctuate her speech, Claire pushes the point down hard and her arm tenses to pull. But Peter, thank God, isn't frozen to the spot and he snatches the file out of her hands. Claire looks up at him as if he's taken a pen off her. Like she's wondering what the fuss is about. Why he's thrown the horrible little thing to the floor.

"He can't hurt me, Peter." Claire says simply. "Not again."

"Peter." Nathan says sharply. Peter is checked in the motion of reaching out to her, and his arms fall lamely to his sides. He sits down heavily on her bed. On Claire's bed. Nathan wishes he wouldn't sit there.

He wishes Peter wouldn't be so obviously desperate to touch his daughter.

"Claire. Honey." It feels weird calling her that now that she's here to hear it. But Nathan perseveres, coming towards her. "You've been through a lot today. This thing – whatever it is – it's going to pass."

"And then you strong men get to take turns guarding me every second of the day, is that it? I get a bodyguard to share my room. Obviously. You want the top bunk, Nathan? We'll bar the windows so he can't fly in, how's that sound. You can follow me to the bathroom, stand outside with Matt Parkman to make sure I'm still alive in there. Hell, why doesn't Angela sit outside the shower?" Her voice is rising. "Dad and Peter can take it in shifts to follow me around all day, shooting anyone who looks at me funny. Sounds _great_. Until you die."

"Claire – "

"Until you _die_, Nathan. And my dad. And my mom. And Lyle. And your kids, you know, those brothers of mine – Milo and Otis or whatever the fuck. Until Angela and Matt Parkman and the Haitian and _every fucking person we know_ is dead, and it's just me and Sylar. Forever."

"I never said you couldn't help to bring Sylar in." Nathan says sharply. Angry, though, she's so beautiful. Like Peter. "I'm saying that this thing, with the pain, you can't let it break you. It's okay to be scared. It scares the shit out of _me_. But, Claire – no more nail files. Okay?"

Just Claire and Sylar, forever. _It was sick, the way he looked at her_, Peter said, and he knows a thing or two about sickness. Claire has no idea, not yet, that there are worse things Sylar can do to her than hurt her. Nathan is more than ever convinced that he needs some big guns on this one – the biggest he knows. He's going to mobilise the United States government to find this son of a bitch, and take him apart. Slowly. Carefully. Testing the limits of his stolen ability. Making him suffer for as long as his immortal body can take it.

Nathan puts aside the vivid revenge fantasy and comes to Claire, ignoring Peter for once, because this is just about her. Because he loves her. And it has changed everything. Carefully, and very gently, looking into her trusting eyes, Nathan smooths her hair. And then he runs his hand through it, his fingers hooking on the part where the hair tie binds it, going over it again. Passing through the blonde hair, stroking her scalp soothingly, the way Ma used to do when he was a kid. "Can you feel that?" he asks her gently.

"Yes." Her eyes close. And Nathan sees a glimmer of tears on her lashes. Then she opens them again, and the look in them is despairing. "You didn't say Peter."

He frowns. "What? When?"

"I said it would come down to Sylar and me. And you didn't say Peter." Her gaze shifts past him, to the shattered man sitting on her bed. Like her heart is breaking, Claire tells Peter, "You have a bruise on your face. And your knuckles are raw."

"I'm sorry." That sounds like all the explanation Peter can give her right now. Nathan can hear the huskiness in his voice, and again that image of Peter with a gun is terrifying him. Peter's hands clutch at the bedspread. His head is bowed.

And Claire crumples inside. Like a puppet with the strings cut. Nathan thinks she needs him to hug her again, but she goes to move past him, to Peter, and he has to catch her around the waist. "Claire, no." he warns.

There's no telling what she might do – and actually, the damage is done. Peter looks up at the sound of Nathan's voice, and he catches Claire looking at him like a fallen angel staring up into Heaven, and he knows. Nathan pulls her into his arms. Hides her face from Peter. He wishes she wouldn't look at Peter like that.

He wishes Claire wouldn't be so obviously desperate to touch his brother.

"Claire? Sweetheart?"

Sandra, thank God. Bennet has never liked Nathan, and he's pathologically possessive of his family – hadn't even liked seeing Nathan hold Claire in that house of death. Nathan's just her father. Bennet's her dad. Nathan lets Claire go. And with a shiver of horror he sees that his tie clip has left a red mark on her forehead.

But Claire – won't have felt it.

"Your mother emailed Noah plane tickets," Sandra says to him. Claire takes the band out of her hair and pulls it back again, fixing the mess Nathan made of the bun. "Four of them. I'm guessing the two of you are… getting back on your own."

She's not comfortable with the flying. Fair enough. But now Nathan has to think about what he's going to do next. He wants to take Claire with him. But Claire's got Bennet, and right now, Nathan wouldn't bet on Sylar if it came down to him and Bennet, no matter what abilities he's got. And Claire's wearing that almost-Angela look again, and Nathan's not entirely sure he'd bet on Sylar if it came down to the two of _them_, either. And Nathan wants to take care of Peter, after all, and it looks like Peter needs him more. All the same, he asks. "You want to travel with your mom?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

Nathan doesn't like leaving them. He doesn't even like flying with Peter. This time he hugs his brother close, because having him this side Nathan can keep a strong grip on him. He can't see quite as well this way. But the momentary vision he has of Peter letting go, mid-air, is making Nathan as paranoid as Bennet. So he holds on tight. All the way home.

X

The more Sandra sees of the Petrelli family, the less she likes them. Well, that's not quite true – she likes Peter. No one could help liking Peter. But as for the others… Noah warned her about Angela, and yes, she was just as big a witch as he'd said – not that the word Noah had used had been _witch_. Sandra doesn't exactly relish the prospect of living in a house that Angela Petrelli regards as hers. And that Nathan Petrelli is too smooth, too charming. When he hugged Peter, that first time, and then when he was holding Claire in her bedroom Sandra saw a human side to him that was actually quite likeable. But still, there's something about him that sets her nerves on edge.

He doesn't look anything like Sandra's daughter. But there is a resemblance, one she can't quite put her finger on. That's the part that irritates Noah. He's jealous. And sure, Sandra can see herself being jealous of Meredith Gordon, if she ever showed up. That would make sense. But what she finds so objectionable about Nathan Petrelli – besides his casual arrogance, that is – she can't figure out.

Thinking about the Petrellis distracts Sandra from thinking about Claire. What happened to Claire today. Claire's trying to be cool and self-possessed, and when Peter has gone, she manages to maintain it. Peter, with his heart always on his sleeve, is the only one who can prompt an emotional reaction from Claire, and Sandra realises now that it's been that way for months. With him gone, her daughter is acting scarily like Noah.

Once, though – in the plane, when the stewardess advises passengers to fasten their seatbelts and Claire hasn't heard – Sandra leans over to do it for her, and Claire's terrified reaction frightens her worse than anything else today. Without saying anything about it, Sandra lets Claire unfasten her belt as soon as the stewardess has passed by. She lays her sweater in her lap. And then, in the town car Angela Petrelli sends to pick them up, Claire leaves the seatbelt alone. And Sandra doesn't say a word. She doesn't know why Claire can't stand the seatbelt. She doesn't want to know.

Not ever.

"I knew it was a mistake for Peter to leave you." Angela declares, the moment they walk in the door. She embraces Claire, coolly – Sandra's surprised that Claire lets her. And oh, poor Peter. He can hear them. "This should never have happened."

"But it did."

"And now we have to make the best of it." Angela concludes. The same tone. Angela and Claire. The same cool gaze, meeting each other's eyes, understanding what they see there. It's the first clear resemblance Sandra's seen between Claire and a Petrelli. She hates it. Why couldn't Claire have been more like Peter?

Peter and Nathan are already in the living room. Nathan stands up to greet them, but after a haunted glance at Claire, Peter just hangs his head. Sandra's heart aches for him. She wants to go over there and give him the hug, not the mention the _apology_, his own mother owes him. The poor boy has done the best he could to save Claire. Over and over. Everyone's blaming themselves for what's happened – with the possible exceptions of Nathan and Angela Petrelli – but Peter is taking on far too much of the burden.

"How did you know I was – " Claire begins. Pauses. Seats herself. Rephrases. "How did you know to come to Costa Verde?"

Cool and collected. Or, at least, trying. Whenever her eyes happen upon Peter something flickers in them, and Sandra sees Claire's fingers flex slightly. She's trying not to look at Peter.

Peter and Nathan exchange a loaded glance. "I had a dream last night. I called you – to make sure you were okay. Then I went to the future to save you. Three years from now, and your family was gone, and you had this one close friend. He came to see you, and it was Sylar. And you didn't know. He was working for the Company, and when he saw me, we fought, and he injected me with something. Twice. I don't know what it was. But I can't use any of my abilities. I had just enough – I don't know. Whatever it is. I got home to the right time, but not the right place, I was here. And then the second shot kicked in. It was a tranquilliser. I tried to tell Ma and Nathan before I passed out."

Peter just stops, there. Noah and Angela look at one another.

"Sylar." Claire says.

Peter nods. Doesn't meet her eyes.

"That's great, Peter. How about you tell me that story again – except this time, try to do it without _lying_ to me."

Her voice is cold as Noah's can be. Peter pretends not to understand. Poorly. No liar, Peter Petrelli. Nathan, evidently giving up on this barebones account of the future, spreads his hands before him in apology. "There are parts he's leaving out." He admits. "But it's nothing that could help. The important thing is, Peter knew you'd be meeting a man calling himself Alex Manion about this time, and he knew that man was Sylar."

"You called me," Claire says to herself. She's trying to work something out. And something hits her. "_Peter_. I want to talk to you."

Seeing Claire's sweet, familiar face drawn and white like this is scaring Sandra, but worse, it's _hurting_ her. And hearing her talk to poor Peter with ice in her voice, in her eyes, is hurting her as much as it's apparently satisfying Angela. "Claire – " Sandra starts, in chorus with Noah. She stops them both with a look.

"I want to talk to Peter alone for a minute."

He doesn't look at her. Just gets off the couch and heads for the stairs. Claire goes after him. Nathan follows them – like before, Sandra notices, and wonders if these Petrellis do anything alone – and stops Claire at the foot of the stairs. Sandra can't hear what they're saying. But Nathan's talking to her in a low, earnest voice, leaning into her like… she's not sure. It reminds her of something, though, and it's not Noah. Nathan touches Claire's arm. Tilts his head. And when he's said his piece, and she's replied, his fingers tighten encouragingly on her upper arm before she turns to go.

Claire mounts the stairs. Nathan rejoins the party, slumping down in his seat. "She's going to go easy on him," he says to his mother. His gaze travels past her to the hall, the empty sweep of the staircase, and Sandra realises what it is she dislikes about Nathan Petrelli.

Angela invites her into the kitchen to help get some coffee going. She couldn't picture Angela doing anything domestic, but here she is, scooping dark ground coffee, prepping the machine. This is the perfect opportunity to raise the issue with Angela, but now that they're here in this cold kitchen, Sandra doesn't quite know how to begin.

"You have something you'd like to say," Angela suggests. She smiles. "Bless you, Sandra, you couldn't have been more obvious if you'd frogmarched me upstairs."

Sandra folds her arms. She does not need to be patronised by Angela Petrelli today. Frankly, she says, "I don't like the way your son is behaving."

"Which one?"

"Nathan. The way he acts with Claire… I'm going to be honest with you, Mrs Petrelli."

"You're welcome to call me Angela. And you are more than welcome to be honest with me."

"He _flirts_ with her." Sandra blurts out. She flushes.

But Angela accepts her observation with equanimity. "There is an edge of flirtation to everything Nathan does," she says dryly. "That's why he makes such a good politician."

She takes cups down. Smiles to herself. She turns to Sandra to explain. "Nathan has never had a daughter before. Never had any sisters. And he went through his female cousins like there was a Scout badge at the end of it. Even Madeline, and she lives with a policewoman called Ricky in San Diego now." Angela frowns slightly. "I believe Madeline and Nathan still get together for a drink now and then – when Ricky's visiting her mother." She shrugs.

_And that's that, for the Petrellis,_ Sandra thinks bemusedly. _She thinks this is normal._ Infidelity and incest is apparently all in a day's privilege for some families. And so, she reminds herself, are flying, time travel, and serial killers. She feels more sorry than ever for Peter – for Claire.

"Are you going to do something about it?" Sandra demands.

Angela's pouring coffee. "What would you like me to do? What exactly is Nathan doing wrong?"

"He's – touching her too often. He talks too close to her." Sandra's feeling flustered. Angela's acting like her concerns are meaningless. She goes to pick up two cups, but Angela takes her hands. Sandra wants to pull away from those long red nails.

"Nathan is exactly the same with Peter." Angela says mildly. That's right, he is. They sit close, and they talk close, and they're always touching one another quite casually. Sure. Sandra doesn't read anything much into that – they're brothers, they love each other. "And Claire doesn't notice anything strange about Nathan's behaviour. There isn't anything strange about it."

Sandra's seen Claire and Nathan together. There's nothing untoward in the way they talk to each other, look at each other. She sees that now. Nathan hasn't loved Claire since she was a little girl, since she was a baby, the way Sandra and Noah have; Claire's just a young woman Nathan knows now – one he's starting to love the way he loves his brother. And he's expressing it the only way he knows how. He's a charming man. Him being charming to Claire – to Peter – it's all the same thing. Nothing to worry about. Sandra relaxes. She's glad, after all, that they had this little talk.

Angela releases Sandra's hand. They take coffee through to the living room.

Sandra sits down between Noah and Lyle. Nathan goes and helps his mother with the last few cups. She smiles up at him. Touches his face affectionately. He's weary with the rough day they've had, but his eyes crinkle as he manages a smile for Angela.

Sandra thinks about the terrible things this woman has done to her family, and the terrible things the members of her family have done to one another. Noah reads her mind. He leans over and murmurs, "She really did a number on those boys."

Sandra rubs Lyle's back, thankful for his dear, ordinary, _familiar_ self. She tries to remember Claire before all this, before Homecoming, and it feels like another life. Another girl. Noah takes her hand. Squeezes.

And Sandra wishes, with all her heart, that they could take their children out of this place, out of this time, and just –

Forget.


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews! Thanks Maria, this chapter opens with Peter and Claire's conversation, so wonder no longer! Thank you Sakura Scout, and here's my take on the 'majik blood' thing – the writers are ignoring it in season 3 because it's too open for abuse, everyone gets to live forever and be healed as long as one of the regenerators still has blood in them, which makes the whole story pointless and boring. So I'll be ignoring it in this fic too. There is no majik blood! Anyone can die... for reals! Exciting, isn't it? As for Peter's abilities, this chapter will hopefully answer all your questions. And for Sandra – I think she's coming to understand Noah's motives in erasing her memory. He's right, she's one of the people who should be protected from that awful stuff, but I don't agree that wiping her memory was the right solution!

**16**

"You said you called me. But you didn't tell me I was going to meet Sylar, Peter, you told me I was _pregnant_."

Her voice is cold. But when Peter reaches out for her Claire jerks away and screams, "Don't touch me!"

The sudden change startles him. He would never, _never_ hurt her, doesn't she know that? Peter holds his hands up. Looks into her eyes, begging her to believe it. But not all the wildness leaves her. "Tell me the truth." Claire demands.

So he does. He's telling her how he tried, desperately, to get to her, when he realises she's laughing. Silently. Uncontrollably.

"Claire – "

"_Don't touch me."_

He won't. He won't. Peter doesn't know what's making her like this, why she was so calm and controlled downstairs and now she's…

_It couldn't have anything to do with being murdered._

Oh God, he hates himself. He should shake her. But he won't hurt her. He should hold her. But he won't touch her, not if she doesn't want him to – and she doesn't.

"I'm so sorry." Peter says helplessly.

"_You're_ sorry? Did you kill me, Peter? Did you cut me? Did you tie me to a table and _cut into my skull_, Peter? Did you lie to me and knock me up? Is all this somehow _your_ fault?" Claire's fists are clenching and unclenching. "Did you take away your own abilities? Is it _your_ fault you're going to _die?"_

"Please – "  
"I hate you." Her voice is low and bitter and her eyes are burning. "I hate you for letting this happen to me."

Peter breaks. He grabs her arms, but Claire jerks free of him, landing a stinging blow on his bruised face. She shoves him. Her hand on his heart. And she's running past him while he's still reeling. Peter tears down the stairs after her.

She throws the front door open and his hand misses her shirt by half an inch.

"Claire!"

Noah Bennet runs past him, elbowing him out of the way, and she's halfway down the street and Peter's just standing there not knowing what the hell just happened. Ma takes his arm. "Peter, calm down. Breathe."

He can taste blood. His lip split when she hit him. Claire hit him. He can't – quite – can't quite believe it. "Peter, I am so sorry," Sandra's saying. She's come to fuss over him, and Peter can't even see Claire's bright hair flying out behind her anymore, and he's hearing Nathan say something firm about going to Washington right _now_ when Claire is knocked to the ground before him.

And Peter hears a shot.

With a jolt he recognises himself. Older. Scarred. Holding a gun.

And then Peter hears another shot, and the other one's head's thrown back violently and he falls, that other one falls, and the gun skitters across the floor. Peter sees himself die.

"Nathan!" Ma screams.

Nathan's shot. Nathan's bleeding on the ground. And Claire is pointing a gun at Peter and shouting at him. He stares at her blankly. Dark hair, but she's not the girl who kissed him sadly, he doesn't know who she is or what's _happening_ – and then it all comes together.

He – this other one – Peter with the scar has shot Nathan, and Nathan's dying, and a girl who looks like Claire looking like her father is demanding that Peter heal Nathan or she will kill him, she swears to God. She shot him. The other him.

"I can't – " he starts, but she shoves him roughly to the ground, beside the body. Her hand on his heart. His other self's eyes are clearing.

"_He_ can. Take it. Heal Nathan."

Nathan is choking on his own blood. Peter focuses. Stares into his own startled eyes – healer, hero – and takes what he needs. He didn't know if he could do it, but with Claire's blow stinging his face, her gun aimed at his head, Peter finds his empathy. He knows how to fix Nathan. "I got it."

Claire drops to one knee, thumbing the cap off a hypodermic and stabbing Scarred Peter in the neck in one fluid motion. She doesn't care about doing it right – no, of course she doesn't, she just shot him in the _head_, what is he thinking? Peter goes to Nathan and Claire joins him and Ma. Oh God, Nathan is white. So much blood. And for a second Peter can't do anything. Claire grabs his collar and shakes him. _"Do it."_

Yes. Hands on him, fingers sinking into thick blood. Pull tissue together. Regenerate. Not a passive ability, this, Peter can feel himself commanding the blood and bone and organs that comprise his brother to correct themselves, to erase the bullet's violent passage. He shot Nathan. Peter shot Nathan.

Nathan's still so white. He's shaking. His eyes plead with Ma, with Claire, and Peter realises Claire's shouting at him to heal him, bring him back, and then she's begging Nathan to stay with her.

"_Nathan!_ Come back!"

Nathan's eyes roll back in his head. He goes still. Ma chokes back a cry. Claire screams. But Peter's working fast, his mind, ability, whatever, creating all the blood Nathan needs, flooding depleted veins, and colour slowly returns to Nathan's face. He breathes in. Chokes on the blood in his throat. Ma and Claire struggle to get him upright as he coughs violently.

From the look in Claire's kohl-rimmed eyes Peter expects her to throw her arms around Nathan, but when he looks at her she leaps away from the family group like she's been scalded. She stalks around Sandra to the body. Satisfies herself that Scarred Peter is deeply unconscious. She stares into his face with the purest hatred. Peter can't process seeing Claire look at him like that. "I should put you down for good."

"Claire."

It's Lyle. The dark ponytail whips around her shoulder. And this new Claire stares at her brother. His mouth falls open. "What happened to you?"

"The future." It's all Peter can manage. Dressed in black, her brown hair pulled severely back, her green eyes blazing out of the heavy eye makeup, she doesn't look anything like the other one. "The future changed. How?"

Claire's feline eyes narrow at him. "You woke me. I was going to go back to sleep. You went to the future, and everything you saw there followed from me sleeping in that morning. But by the time you got back, I'd decided to stay awake. I went to school early. Found Sylar. Was just tired enough to tell him something that made him slip up. Forced his hand."

"I did this."

His voice is hoarse. Claire's face doesn't look like hers with that gleam of malicious pleasure in her eyes. "Yeah. You did."

"How do you know?" Lyle, again. Why is Lyle so brave?

Smirk. "Me and Peter figured it out a long time ago. Poor Peter. It nearly killed him. If it hadn't been for Nathan – " She stops. Eyes change. And then that smirk comes up again, and Claire tilts her head. She's ignoring Lyle now. Ignoring _Sandra_ like her life depends on it. Maybe it does. "He came back to stop Nathan. Maybe he wants to die. What do you think?"

This last is aimed at the body at her feet. Peter can't let her kill him. He casts around for something, anything, to distract her. "What about the boy?"

Her eyes are suddenly dead. "The boy? You mean my little _mistake_ with Gabriel? I took care of that. With the Haitian's help, of course. Poor Gabriel. It was his own fault - he can be surprisingly careless when he really gets going. You wouldn't think he'd have felt so devastated after the third time, would you? But it wouldn't have been fair to the kid. You did know Gabriel's your brother, right?" Head tilt. She's enjoying this now.

Peter looks at Ma. Her eyes are narrowed.

Nathan coughs again. Blood spatters. "Who the fuck is Gabriel?" He asks thickly.

"Sylar." Ma says. Her sons stare at her. Peter can't – she hit him. Gabriel? He can't understand this. His brother? Dad slept around a lot, but… no. Peter turns on Claire. What is she _saying_ to him?

"Claire." Sandra unfreezes. She's looking at this other Claire like she's a stranger. Claire won't meet her mother's eyes. She delivers a sharp kick to the feebly stirring body on the ground. Scarred Peter groans.

"Wake up, you bastard."

His eyes open. Peter's eyes. There's a nasty little click. "Hear that?" Head tilt. "You take us home. Now. Or I kill Lyle."

That damn tilt of the head, Peter's seen it before, and he's seen the little smile that plays around her mouth before too. Claire looks at him. "You and Lyle are going to be good friends someday," she informs him. "Well. Maybe."

She can't be meaning to shoot Lyle. He's standing there like he still can't believe what's happening. Sandra lunges into the line of fire and sweeps him into her arms. "Claire, no." She begs.

Something flickers in Claire's eyes. Her mom and her brother. "Take us _home_, Peter."

His fingers curl around her ankle. Scarred Peter looks into Peter's eyes. There's an urgent message there.

_I came back for a reason. _

Peter's too scared to nod. But Scarred Peter seems to see that he understands. One moment that mirror is there, that wounded man, that insane girl, and the next – it's gone.

There's just blood on the tiles. And Scarred Peter's gun. The one that shot Nathan. Nathan's half-lying on the floor, cradled there in Ma's arms, reminding him of another son, another mother Peter has seen somewhere else. Sandra clutches Lyle to her, turns her face into his shoulder and sobs. Peter's alone. His face, fists, ribs are still dull with pain and he realises that he's not healing. When he feels for the lightning, the telekinesis, the _flight_ even, he's got nothing. He knows how to heal other people. But that's all Peter can do.

_What did he take from us, Claire?_

But he knows. Sylar has taken everything.

X

Noah's longer legs keep pace easily with Claire's fast, angry strides. She doesn't know where she's going – just away, he figures. He walks with her in silence, both because he really does think it's best for now, and because he doesn't want to give away how pleased he is. He shouldn't be. He shouldn't be happy that Claire screamed at her best friend, hit him, ran away from him leaving him looking like the world had turned upside down.

_He tried to kiss me. By accident._

Bullshit. Noah remembers Peter Petrelli in his cell – talking to Claire, he was pale and bloodstained but his eyes were lit up like Christmas lights. _Bullshit_ that kiss was an accident. If he hadn't found out they were related Noah would have found Peter Petrelli on his doorstep the day Claire turned eighteen – probably with two dozen roses and an engagement ring, knowing him.

Noah came so close to losing Claire today. He can't stand the thought of anyone else having any part of her. He tries for a neutral tone. "Want to tell me what that was all about?"

"I'm not going back to that house. Not until Peter leaves it."

Sounds promising.

But then Sandra calls. Crying. Telling Noah that it's all over, but that he needs to come back right away, and he's running before he's even hung up. Claire sprints behind him. This fight can wait until she's seen her mom safe.

Noah sees the blood on the floor. The gun. Nathan Petrelli, looking surprisingly good for a man with his torn shirt soaked in what has to be his own blood. Sandra's crying and Lyle looks shaken. "What the hell happened here?"

Peter tells them. Claire starts out staring at Nathan, but as Peter goes on her eyes lose focus and her face pales. Noah can't believe it. And then – _I knew going to Washington was a stupid idea_. Nathan's grand plan is so stupid Peter came back from the future to _kill_ him before he could set it in motion. And Claire – Noah can't picture Claire doing those things. Grabbing Peter to come back with him. Stopping him – with a bullet. Throwing that other Peter around like a rag doll. Bringing Nathan back from the dead. Peter even tells them the part about Claire – and Sylar. Gabriel Gray. Who, whatever Claire from the future might have thought, Noah is damn sure is no son of Angela or Arthur Petrelli's.

"I did that?" Claire says softly. Wonderingly. Noah doesn't like the way she says it.

"No." Sandra says firmly. "It was someone who looked like you and talked like you but it was _not_ my daughter."

Claire doesn't seem to hear her. Angela's watching her, sizing her up, figuring her out. Noah doesn't like any part of this. Pleased as he might have been for Claire to get into a fight with Peter, he never wants her to be so broken that she can shoot him in the head without hesitation. Not even knowing he can heal. Not even to save Nathan. That doesn't sound like Claire. That sounds like all the worst parts of himself.

Unexpectedly, Lyle speaks up. "She was messed up. She pointed a gun at me and mom. And she had sex with her uncle." he concludes, like Claire imagining Gabriel Gray was related to her was the worst part of _that_ scenario.

Peter looks away from Claire. That son of a bitch.

"It sounds messed up," Claire agrees. "It also sounds like she saved Nathan's life. _And_ showed Sylar how _not_ special he really is."

Claire sounds – sort of exhilarated at the thought. So much power, and all of it hers. Someone walks over Noah's grave.

Angela raises an eyebrow. "Taking Sylar down a peg by conceiving and aborting his child? I think you can do better than that this time, Claire."

Now she has Claire's attention. Claire's total attention. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's true." Angela lies. "Sylar is my son. Arthur and I named him Gabriel, after the angel. But someone we knew had precognitive dreams, like Peter, and soon we knew that he would have done the most terrible things to Nathan… to Peter, who was a baby then. My baby. To save two sons I sent a third away. It was a harsh choice. Perhaps a cruel one. But for better or for worse, Arthur and I made that decision. Now – perhaps it's time to bring him back into the fold. That other Claire spoke of Gabriel. Not Sylar." Angela looks at Noah, who knows she's lying. And this part is all for him. "He could be a valuable asset – brought to remember who he truly is. He could help us save the world."

Angela's a good coercer. But is she that good? "No." Noah says loudly. He doesn't want that monster anywhere near him again, anywhere near his family.

But Claire's caught Angela's drift better than he has. "You think Angela gives a damn about _Gabriel_, Dad? She's going to make him a weapon. And when we're done using him…"

Oh. Of course. Although, assuming Angela could create this weapon Noah knows she'd never part with it, the idea still tempts him. Lure him in. Use him. And then – make sure that bastard pays so thoroughly on earth for his sins that when they finally let him die, his soul goes straight to heaven.

And Sylar has a _lot_ of sins to work off.

Noah likes the idea.

What he doesn't like is how much Claire likes the idea, too.

X

No consensus is reached. Nathan agrees at least to delay going ahead with his plan, and no more Terminators show up to eliminate him. It's something. At first Claire refuses to stay in the house if Peter's here, but unexpectedly it's Noah who persuades her to stay tonight. She still won't speak to Peter. But it's no more than he deserves. Peter knows that.

They go to bed that night reluctantly. Uneasily. And when Claire's first scream shatters the silence, Noah and Sandra are awake and ready to go and comfort her.

Hours pass. The house is still again. And a man appears in Nathan's darkened bedroom. But Peter knew he'd be back. Counted on it. And before he can fire, Peter comes out of the shadows behind him. "Don't do this."

The man turns around – it's himself. Scarred Peter. Future Peter.

"I wanted to help you, but I don't know what to do. You have to take me back with you. Tell me what went wrong. Show me how to fix this. Please. Help me find a way that doesn't involve killing Nathan." Peter says, with total conviction.

That other Peter scans his face minutely. Finally, Future Peter nods. "You can only hold one ability at a time, right? So take Claire's ability from me."

Peter does. It feels like his body is filling up with sunlight, her sad smile, the way she touches him, and he wonders if this is what it felt like for Sylar when – and then he stops thinking like that, and just concentrates on the way it feels for his cuts and bruises to smoothly heal. "I got it."

"You're not going to like what you see." Future Peter warns him. He knows. Then he takes hold of his arm, and they close their eyes and they're –

In Costa Verde. Outside Claire's house. It's a beautiful day. "It's six years gone," Future Peter tells him. "Abilities are synthesised. Everyone who can afford one has one. Nathan's little taskforce started out tracking the special people, but now it's a major governmental agency that supervises abilities, and he's the President." He looks at Peter's stunned expression with sympathy. "I figured I'd start you here. With Gabriel. She told you about him, didn't she?"

"How did you know?"

"Did it hurt?"

_Yes_. Future Peter reads his expression. He tries to smile. Shrugs. "That's how I know."

She told him because she knew it would hurt. There's something there, about only knowing what the right thing is because it hurts, but nothing about what that Claire said to him sounded _right_. And people with abilities, everywhere – Peter doesn't get it. "What about the virus?"

"We stopped the virus getting out. Me and Gabriel." Future Peter indicates the front door. "I think I better just show you."

When they walk in to Claire's old home Peter experiences another pang of disorientation. There are toys. There's mess. Someone's cooking waffles in the kitchen, he can smell them, and Mr Muggles runs up to him with a little boy hard on his heels.

"Uncle Peter!"

Peter staggers back. Future Peter scoops up the little boy, smiling at his crow of delight, and it's the boy from his first vision but he's younger, happier, and vibrantly healthy. And alive. It's Claire's son.

The boy catches sight of Peter, and he goes shy and buries his face in Future Peter's jacket. Hides those big dark eyes of his. Peter thought his eyes would have been green, like Claire's. They're not.

"Gabriel." Future Peter calls out. And another bizarre shock – a man who's the spitting image of Sylar comes out of the kitchen, except this man is wearing glasses, and a grey sweater, and a blue apron that says _Hail to the Chef_. He's holding a spatula.

His welcoming expression freezes when he sees Peter.

"He's from the past." Future Peter hastens to explain. "I went back – " Remembering the boy, he raises his eyebrows significantly. Sylar – Gabriel – nods.

"I want to help. Without doing – what he wanted to do." Peter says.

This man is his brother. This man cut into his head, sent a shard of glass flying into the back of his skull, killed him. Nearly blew up New York. Nearly made _him_ blow up New York. This man killed Claire. And now the man who did these things is carefully taking Claire's son from Future Peter. "Hey, buddy," he says cheerfully. "Uncle Peter went back in time. Like Hiro. You remember, we talked about that?"

The kid nods solemnly.

"Well, Uncle Peter brought his old self back. This is Peter before he ever met you. I know he looks weird without his scar. And it's sure weird seeing two of them, huh?"

He smiles at the boy in his arms, who takes a peek at the two Peters. The boy giggles.

"Your waffles are ready in the kitchen, buddy. So how about you go eat them in there while me and Peter Two here have a talk? You can help Uncle Peter make himself some. Okay?"

"Okay."

He's kind of reluctant. But when Future Peter takes his hand and starts leading him to the kitchen, asking him if Daddy remembered to get syrup this time, he looks adoringly up at his uncle and starts chattering away. Peter and Gabriel are forgotten. When they're safely shut away in Noah Bennet's old study, Peter realises he doesn't even know this man.

"What's his name?"

"Noah."

Peter doesn't want to ask the next question. But he has to. "Did his… mother name him?"

Gabriel takes off the apron and folds it neatly. "No. I named him. After my mother reconciled with the Company Noah Bennet became my mentor. My friend."

No. He doesn't know this man at all. Peter tells Gabriel everything, and when he gets to the part about the abortions, he sees an old pain in Gabriel's eyes. "She was on assignment in India. By the time she realised she was pregnant with Noah, it was too late."

"She didn't tell me about him."

"Did it hurt? Thinking Noah never existed?"

That's the second time someone's asked him that. Gabriel reads the answer on his face, and nods slowly. "She can't feel pain. But she can make other people feel it, and that's what all this has been about. That's what everything's about for her now."

"And Noah?"

Gabriel knows what he's getting at. "She dumped him in Angela's arms the moment the doctor gave him to her. And as far as I know, that's the last time she's seen Noah. Official party line is that his mother was Elle Bishop. Noah only knows Claire's the cousin he never meets."

"Elle?" This is just all getting too weird. What can Elle possibly have to do with – Gabriel?

"I killed Elle when Noah was a baby." Gabriel says bluntly. "I didn't have good control in those days. I killed her, right there on the floor, in front of his crib. He thinks mommy died on assignment."

"I can't." Peter shakes his head. "I can't deal with this."

"You had my ability before. You felt that hunger."

There it is. There's Sylar. Even talking about the hunger with loathing there's something excited about Gabriel's voice that clenches Peter's fists. Gabriel catches the look on his face. "When did you leave?"

"The day you took Claire's ability." Peter says, through gritted teeth. "How could you? You killed her. You're her uncle. How could you do it?"

He's getting his mortal sins confused – if incest is a mortal sin, and Peter thinks it must be. Gabriel's eyes narrow. Sylar again. "I could ask you the same thing."

_I never told anyone. Did you?_

But he knows why. "It hurt you."

"She did." Gabriel admits. "She also came running to me one morning and told me Nathan had gotten pretty drunk the night before – told me she'd hit the trifecta. All with that smile on her face. I guess you know the one."

No. "That's not true."

Gabriel shrugs. His eyes are dark. "Nathan swears it's not."

"Daaaaddy," a singsong voice complains from the other room. Bizarrely, Peter hears his own voice shushing the kid, distracting him.

Noah's daddy's expression softens. "You're going to fix things. I wish you could fix them so I could still have Noah. He's the one thing I don't regret about all this. But Peter – when you get back, don't let Claire get involved with me again."

No matter what, Peter can't forgive him. He saw her in that room. "It's a little late to be concerned about Claire's welfare."

Brief laughter. Sylar's. "It's not Claire I'm worried about."

Seeing Sylar again in Gabriel gives Peter an idea. "I'm going back to fix things," Peter repeats, slowly. "You know how to fix things."

"No."

"I need your ability."

"_No_."

Peter considers just – reaching out, with that part of his mind, and _taking_ –

Scorn. "Like you could."

Ah, there he is. There's Sylar. Selfish, and arrogant, and always that much stronger than Peter, and Peter understands for the first time how that girl he saw and this man could – "I have to save _Claire_. I need your ability."

"You don't understand what you're asking. You've had my ability but you never used it, did you? Intuitive Aptitude, they call it, but they don't tell you that every time you use it you need to intuit more, understand more, you need to acquire more – knowledge, power, _everything_. You need more and more of everything, Peter, and nothing is ever enough." Gabriel's voice is rising, and with a glance at the door he lowers it abruptly. "There's a hunger that comes with it. You know that. But you don't know yet that the more you use it, the more it grows. After Elle died, I quit working for the Company – it was too dangerous, too tempting, being constantly exposed to all those abilities. So I sit at home. Raise my son. Fix things that Angela and Nathan send me to fix. And every day, Peter – _every single day_, I fight a hunger that I barely have under control."

That look, Peter's seen it before – on Noah Bennet. "Your son has an ability."

"He hasn't manifested yet. I don't know what it is. I just know that it's there."

Peter doesn't care. He'll take that hunger if it saves them. "I need it, Gabriel."

"To save Claire? And what happens when you have? Do you want to know what it's like to look at her and _want her_, with everything you've got, when what you want to do is cut into her, tear her apart, find out what makes her tick? Claire at least could survive it – even if her mind couldn't. Do you want to look at Nathan like that? Angela? Simon and Monty?"

Somehow Gabriel knowing the names of his nephews – _their_ nephews – makes it real for Peter. To want to murder the boys… the little boy in the kitchen… Claire.

Gabriel is watching his face closely. "It's not worth it." He tells Peter.

Peter sits down heavily. He looks without seeing at the brightly coloured crayon pictures on the walls. "Then what am I supposed to do."

"Stop Nathan telling the world about abilities. Stop Pinehearst synthesising them. Stop the virus getting out."

"That's the world." And Peter's sort of surprised, in a dull way, to find that he doesn't care that much about saving the world. Not anymore. "What about the cheerleader?"

Gabriel sighs. "You have to heal this thing with Claire. Help her learn to take care of herself. Trust her to do it. Don't drive her to Nathan and _me_ – don't let us be the only people who'll accept her as an agent."

"An _agent_?"

Now he's bitingly sarcastic. "No, Peter, what Claire needs now is to go back to high school and try out for cheerleading. What did you think she wanted to do now?"

Peter just shakes his head. "What else."

"I thought this… obsession with her would stop when I took her ability. It didn't. I understand Claire, better than she does herself, and I – still wanted her. Not just for her mind." Gabriel says, with a bitter smile. "Let her trap me, so Angela can tell me who I am. But after that – I'd say don't let me near her, but I doubt you could stop me. So get there first."

Peter stares. Gabriel just shrugs. "If it's got to be one of us… for everyone's sake, it should be you."

"No. You don't know what you're asking. It's wrong."

Sylar raises an eyebrow. Funny how Peter's bringing out the worst in him. "And how's doing the right thing working out for you?"

No. No, he wants this too much, and Sylar of all people giving him permission is hardly convincing Peter. "I'll think about it." He lies.

To save her from this, all Peter has to do is the one thing he wants most in the world. _She hurts people… that's what everything is about for her, now… Nathan swears he didn't… I should put you down for good… _

No. He can't.

"Daddy!"

Small hands fumble with the doorknob, and Gabriel's son bursts into the room like a tiny whirlwind. Future Peter's right behind him. "She's here," he says urgently. "With Knox and Flint."

Gabriel picks up his son and holds him tight. But Peter suddenly has a terrible feeling. "Take the kid," he tells his future self.

"_What? _You have to go, _now_."

Peter turns on Gabriel. "I can't explain it, but something bad is going to happen if the kid's still here when she gets in. I just _know_."

How? His only ability is healing. But that image of the other Claire with her dead son in her arms is all Peter can see.

"Gabriel?"

Her voice. Singsong. Like she's mocking little Noah. Gabriel looks uncertain for a moment, then thrusts his son into Future Peter's arms.

"Daddy!"

"It's okay, buddy. Uncle Peter's going to keep you safe."

Future Peter meets Gabriel's gaze. He nods. Grabs Peter's shoulder with his free hand.

"Daddy!" Noah screams.

But Gabriel's gone. They're at home. Nathan's home. Claire's bedroom. She wakes, jerking upright in bed with a gasp. The covers fall away from her. Her hair is messy and her eyes are sleepy and unfocused.

Future Peter is staring at her like she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Noah cuddles closer to his uncle. "Where's Daddy?" he whimpers.

_Get moving._

But Future Peter is frozen.

"Peter?" Claire says hesitantly. She looks from one to the other. And then she looks at the boy. And she gets out of bed. Comes to him. In her t-shirt and shorts, blonde hair like an untidy halo, she doesn't look anything like the broken girl she'll become. "It's him, isn't it?" Then she looks up at Future Peter. "And – you."

"You need to get out of here." Peter says urgently. But they're not listening.

"It's your mom." Future Peter says hoarsely. Shyly, little Noah reaches out to her, entranced the way kids can be with beautiful girls, with storybook princesses. Claire touches his small hand. Then she caresses his dark head, drinking in his face, his eyes, memorising him. The son Gabriel made Peter promise she would never have.

Then her eyes lift to Future Peter. And there's so much in her face, in his, that Peter almost breaks down and resolves to save her like _that _anyway, whatever it might cost them. "I'm so sorry." Future Peter says.

She doesn't scream at him. She raises her other hand to his face, and very gently, her fingertips trace his scar. His eyes close. And Claire goes on her tiptoes, one arm wrapped around her son, the other around Future Peter's neck, and kisses him. It's a perfect moment. That sadness, when she pulls away. "I'll always love you, Peter."

_I'm sorry, Peter. I always loved you._

She's saying it to both of them. And Future Peter tries to smile. He strokes her messy hair. "I know."

Then he steps back. And with one last, hungry look, he's gone.

They're gone.

And Peter and Claire are the only ones left in a room that is suddenly large and empty. Peter doesn't know what to do now. He feels like he shouldn't have seen that. Claire sits down on her bed. And after a moment, she pats the space next to her. Cautiously, Peter joins her.

"Tell me about my son."

"His name is Noah."

Claire smiles. And Peter dregs up every detail he can remember, and some he's surprised to be able to recall, from the implied incident of Daddy forgetting the syrup to the airplanes in Noah's crayon drawings. He didn't think about it at the time, but looking back he realises that every drawing had at least one airplane at the top. Noah likes planes, he guesses. And waffles. And Mr Muggles. And his daddy loves him with a single-minded intensity Peter's only seen before in Noah Bennet.

When Peter runs out of things to say they sit in silence for a while. But it's not the strained, awkward silence of before. It's a tentative truce. And when Claire finally thanks him and says she thinks she'll go back to sleep now, Peter pretends not to notice the tears in her eyes or the tremor in her voice.

_I'm sorry, Gabriel. But you were wrong. It's wrong._

_I can't fix it like this._


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks to faithfulwriter and maxwell02 for your reviews! This is a short chapter, but the next one will be longer. Thanks to everyone who's reading, hope you're still enjoying it.

**17**

Claire is living a nightmare. She can tell, because if you think you're dreaming you're supposed to pinch yourself, and if it hurts you know you're awake.

Nothing hurts anymore.

The last pain Claire felt was the tiny saw – and Sylar was right, after all. It was more frightening than painful. And he was right about her brain. It didn't hurt at all once he'd gotten the top of her skull off, and slowly as he worked the nagging pinch of the tight skipping ropes melted away, and Claire lay there, listening to the calm flow of his voice, and she felt nothing. Still. Barely breathing. Sylar had realised she wasn't dying, that she wasn't going to die, and he told her all about how special she was – _they_ were, now – and what that really meant, and Claire saw the abyss open up before her and she felt nothing.

He broke her. And then he put her back together wrong. Claire came back wrong.

Before, when everything became too much, Claire could go and throw herself off a bridge, cut her skin, break her bones. And a clean, brilliant flash of pain would wipe out all the terror and anger. Clear her head of _everything_. And when the endorphins rushed up to fill the empty space Claire would feel calm again and in control.

Now the pressure builds and builds inside her and Claire has no way of release. The horror she felt when the nail file didn't work is still with her. She still tries, when no one's looking. Can't really believe that it's gone, that it doesn't work anymore. Slowly, Claire is discovering that emotional pain is almost doing the trick. When that other Peter left with her son – her _son_, for God's sake – the void they left hurt. But not enough. Not _enough_. So she pushed it, let Peter tell her more about the little boy she felt instant, fierce love for, let him tell her more about what she's lost. And Claire lies awake til dawn crying for him, because she's heard that crying releases endorphins, too. But it's not as good as really smashing herself up. Nothing is.

In the morning Peter tells them what happened last night. He falters sometimes, and Claire suspects he's leaving things out. If it's to spare her pain – she feels a sudden hunger for the details.

Dad frowns. "Flint was there?"

"Yeah, do you know him?"

Nathan speaks up. He's been brooding. "Meredith had a brother called Flint. Big dumb guy, always in trouble."

"He's still around." Dad says.

Claire snorts. "Is this family even _aware_ of people who aren't related to us?"

Peter sort of smiles. And then there's silence for a moment, and Claire realises they're all looking at Angela. "Gabriel told you we'd reformed the Company," she muses.

"And he told me about a place called Pinehearst. And someone's murdering Company founders. I think it's time you told us what's going on, Ma."

Angela is pale beneath the livid scratches. Claire thinks she's going to refuse, but she seems to make a decision. "Thirty years ago there was a falling out in the Company. We had developed a virus capable of ending life as we know it. Some of us wanted all research and the one remaining vial destroyed – some of us did not. The research was destroyed, but the Company still has a sample in a storage facility here in New York." She looks at Peter. "Five months ago I had a series of dreams about the virus getting out. Linderman, Kaito and I planned so many ways of stopping it, but none of them changed the future as I dreamt it. Not until you absorbed Ted Sprague's ability."

Peter's hands glowing. The look on his face. The gun.

"You saw the future I dreamt. You know what I was trying to prevent. I knew you could survive it."

"And New York?" Peter can't seem to speak, but Nathan calls Angela on her bullshit with a disgusted expression, like he'd never agreed to go along with it. "You would have blown up the _city_, Ma."

"Peter would have destroyed the virus." Angela corrects him coolly.

When Claire looks at Peter she knows nothing could ever, ever justify this – but then she remembers the warmth of that solid little body, the wide dark eyes of her son, and she imagines him sick, dying of the virus – and Angela's eyes meet hers. Claire hasn't felt that sudden connection to another person, that instant feeling that this is random human being is _so much more_ important than any other since… not since she met Peter. Angela's son.

She doesn't want to understand Angela.

"So who's killing Company founders?" Dad asks.

"Someone who wants the virus released." Angela replies.

"Who would want a thing like that?"

Claire feels so sorry for Mom. She shouldn't have to deal with any of this. Mom honestly can't believe that anyone would want to release a deadly virus. And then Claire feels a little sorry for herself, because now she knows better.

"Someone I knew a long time ago." Angela says evasively. "If we're going to have a chance of stopping him and destroying the virus, we're going to need Sylar. We're going to need the Company."

"I can get him for you." Claire says. "But Mom and Lyle need to get out of here. Is there a safe place they can go?"

Mom immediately protests, but Dad looks at Claire approvingly. There's an argument, which Dad and Claire win by taking Mom and Lyle apart separately and telling them both that they want them to stay, but someone needs to take care of the other. It's almost scary, how easy it is to work with Dad. How easy it is to lie to them.

An hour later Mom and Lyle are packed off to a safe house, and Nathan's home is a little sadder and emptier. Angela won't tell them where she's sent them, just that there's no paper trail leading to it, and if none of them know either they'll be safer. And Claire's sitting in this guest room that's hers now, cell phone in one hand, piece of paper with a neatly pencilled number on it in the other. Alex Manion, the paper says. Feels like a long time ago. Every time she goes to dial her hands start shaking, she doesn't even know what to tell him, she's just a teenage girl and he's a monster and she's _stupid_ to think she can do this, lie convincingly enough to trap him. But she has to.

In the end, Claire just dials without planning what she's going to say.

"It's me."

Silence. Then – "I thought it might be."

Smug bastard. Claire's nails dig into her palm, but the spark of pain doesn't come to steady her. "I need you to fix me," she blurts out.

"What?" Sylar doesn't sound like he knows what she's talking about.

Claire hesitates. Should she tell him what he did? But some deep conviction tells her that if Sylar needs to know more, to understand more all the time and she leaves things vague on the phone, there's a much higher chance he'll show. "I need you to meet me."

Saying _I need you_ to him is disgusting.

"Did daddy put you up to this, Claire Bear?" But there's an edge of interest. She can do this.

Claire puts her real desperation into her voice. "Just you and me. You – did something. I'm wrong. I'm broken, and I need you to fix it. You _owe_ me this."

"Broken how?"

Claire gives him a time and a place instead. And then she hangs up.

It's a gamble. He doesn't call back and she's not sure he's going to take the bait, but Claire reminds herself of the future and forces herself to act confident. Downstairs, her family waits to hear how it went.

Claire smiles. "He'll be there."

The coffee's cooling rapidly by the time Sylar approaches her. Claire feels a sick shock in the pit of her stomach when she recognises him crossing Kirby Plaza. Her hands are trembling. She puts her untouched cup down on the bench beside her.

Claire watches the wolf come towards her and wishes, with all her heart, that she were safe back at grandmother's house. But she stays where she is. When Sylar sits down beside her, he drapes his arm over the back of the bench. It's an arrogant, relaxed gesture that sets her teeth on edge.

"You're looking well." He greets her. Since the last time he saw her, he means, in that room –

"Coffee?"

He gives her an amused, reproachful look. Claire sighs. "Don't be such a baby," she says, throwing his own words back at him. "Take mine."

It's surprisingly easy to tease the boogeyman. Claire swaps the cups, and flinches back when he goes to take his too soon. Sitting here is one thing. Talking to him is one thing. But she recoils from touching him like she'd shrink from touching a week-old corpse.

"So what's this all about?" Sylar asks, raising the cup to his lips. Claire tries not to watch too avidly. She tucks her unoccupied hand into her coat pocket. Feels the syringe.

She takes a deep drink of her coffee before she replies. This is horribly familiar, but this time Claire knows who he is. And – more importantly – she knows now who _she_ could become. "You did something to my brain. You put me back together wrong. Ever since – the attack – I can't feel pain. At all. I can't feel anything."

His head tilts. He looks at her appraisingly. There's an analytical gleam in his eyes. "Show me."

Claire has to take her hand out of her pocket. She holds it out. "Don't touch." she warns. When he nods, she says, "Cut me."

With a small smile, like he appreciates how bizarre this is, Sylar makes a little motion towards her bare hand. Claire and Sylar watch the line open, bleed, and close with the same detachment. It might as well be a stranger's hand. Claire rubs the remaining smudge of blood off on her dark coat. "Nothing."

"Well now," Sylar says. Claire drinks coffee, and he follows suit absently, his mind elsewhere. She tries to calculate how much he's drunk now. It's a small cup.

"I need you to fix it."

"Why? Seems to me like it'd be an advantage."

"It makes me a _freak_." Claire says passionately. "I don't know when I'm being burned. Or cut. I could catch my hand in machinery and never notice unless I could _see_ it being mangled. Pain – let me know I was human."

Is she imagining it, or was that blink slower, lazier than normal? "I don't think that's the real reason."

When Sylar puts his cup down the hollow noise the paper makes hitting the bench tells Claire it's empty. But he doesn't look – he looks perfectly alert. He frowns. And Claire realises she's been watching his face too long.

"I need to feel pain." She says, without thinking.

"Sick little cheerleader," Sylar chides her. "Why?"

"Because I _like_ it." Claire hisses, moving closer to him on the bench. Honesty will throw him off. It has to. Hands in her pockets, because she's scared he'll touch her, because it's cold. "Pain is the one thing in my life I can control. I _need_ it."

Sylar leans back from her. The coffee hasn't had any effect Claire can see, and he's not letting her get quite close enough for Plan B. He's suspicious. And the coffee she's drunk is starting to make her feel slow. Clouded. Despair floods her. She _has_ to do this, everyone's counting on her to do this, doing this will save them all, doing this will save – her son. Noah. With his round cheeks, his small hands, his big, trusting eyes. His big… dark eyes.

Sylar's eyes are dark like her son's. Like their son's. Claire looks into those eyes and fixes her mind on that little boy. "Please," she says softly.

Abruptly, his suspicion vanishes. And all Claire can see in him now is a hunger that terrifies her. She tries not to shake. Comes closer. Holding that gaze. And this time, Sylar doesn't move away. Her knee bumps the bench, knocks his empty cup to the ground as she rises, leans in, tries to make her mind completely blank and presses her mouth to his.

Sylar freezes. These are not the rules they play by.

And then as Claire fumbles for her coat pocket his hand winds into her hair and Sylar kisses her back, violently, and his mouth is moving on hers and he doesn't do this like Peter, this is _nothing_ like Peter and Claire goes wild with fear for a moment before her fingers find the cool syringe, and tearing it from her pocket she thumbs the cap off and drives it as hard as she can into his neck. He yanks her away by the hair and she feels nothing, no pain, just sudden and vicious triumph at the shock on his face. Claire's panting with fear and elation, and Sylar's breathing hard as he struggles not to let the tranquilliser overwhelm him, and on the surge of power Claire feels an unexpected jolt of lust – her hand on his chest, one of his in her hair, the other grasping her waist so hard it should hurt – but, of course, it doesn't. Claire holds his gaze and with a shiver of pleasure watches him _know_ that she's got him. She's _got_ him. As consciousness slips from Sylar, Claire takes the opportunity to lean in and whisper, "Welcome to the family."

Some family.

X

Noah watches through the one-way mirror. Angela won't tell him the details of her reconciliation with the Company, but he's glad to have the use of their facilities again, and he's confident in Angela's ability to negotiate. He's somewhat less confident in her other ability.

Angela is detaching the sedative from the still, black-clad body on the table. He slowly comes round. And the whole time Angela is talking to him, her hands with their scarlet nails stroking his face, taking his hands, smoothing his shirt and his hair. Using the ability she has only allowed a very few people to know she possesses. Precognitive dreams are one thing. Coercion is a much more frightening ability. Keeping it a secret ensures that Angela can always get close enough to her targets to touch them with those long, persuasive fingers, to murmur suggestions to them.

She's good. But is she good enough to persuade Sylar that he's her biological son? The guy's got mommy issues; Noah knows that from reading his file. And he knows it from seeing the bloodied remains of Gabriel Gray's mother. Angela knows it too, knows the risk she's taking if this doesn't work – maybe a greater risk if it does. Noah has to wonder if there are any lengths that woman won't go to.

Sylar is sitting up now, staring at Angela. And – incredibly – he's nodding. Noah is frankly impressed. Claire joins Noah at the window. She's only just woken up, and her sleepy exultation as she watches Sylar is unnerving.

"I brought him in." She says again. Checks him for his reaction.

"You did very well." Noah says. Again. If she were any other new agent, bringing in a monster like Sylar on her first quasi-assignment – but she's not. She's his daughter. And while Noah can admire someone like Angela for coolly running insane risks, he can't condone it in his little girl.

They watch in silence as Sylar stands up. Looks up at the window. And Angela allows him to leave the room with her. "I've told him everything."

But Sylar only has eyes for Claire. "You."

"Me." She agrees. She tilts her head. Like him. "Uncle Gabriel."

"I thought it was the coffee," he says conversationally. "Set all my regenerative ability to countering any toxic substances in it. But that was just a blind, wasn't it?"

Claire shakes her head. A naggingly familiar smile. "Both cups were drugged. Haven't you ever seen the Princess Bride? The syringe was Plan B."

"And Plan C?"

Noah frowns. What's Plan C?

"Plan C I improvised." Claire says smugly. But there's something in the way they're looking at each other Noah does not like. "It also hid Plan B pretty nicely. I thought someone must have seen me inject you, but would you believe nobody called the cops? Even when the agents dragged you out of there."

"This isn't Odessa."

Claire just smiles again. She's on a high from the capture. Noah's seen it before – but not on his daughter.

Sylar folds his arms. "So. We're family now, huh?" He gives her a wolfish smile of his own. Leans in. "Thanks for the warm welcome."

Claire recoils. Noah reminds himself that in some unimaginable future he mentors this man. Becomes his friend. _I don't think you ever forgave him_, Peter said. _But you made him a good agent. Gave him something to be, other than a monster._

Noah would like to give Sylar something else to be. He would like to give Sylar the opportunity to become a really excellent corpse.

"Claire." Angela says sharply. "Remember that you agreed to this."

But she's not talking to Claire. Not really. She's reminding Noah of her promise to hand Sylar over the moment he's outlived his usefulness, bless her, and not before time. Noah relaxes. Smiles. And is pleased to see wariness in Sylar's eyes.

Angela says, "Gabriel and I are going to have a little talk about procedure. And then I have an assignment for the two of you."

Claire folds her arms. Mirroring him. "It's called bagging and tagging because there are these two really simple steps to it." Claire explains patiently. "You're gonna be amazed, cause actually neither of them involves eating anyone's brain. I know, I'm going too fast. Angela's going to explain it way better."

"Claire. You know I don't eat the brain."

Claire gives him a level look. "I know a lot of things about you."

Part of Noah is horrified to hear Claire joke, however darkly, about what he did to her. Part of him's kind of proud to see her rally so quickly. And another part is just worried about the kind of things Claire knows about Sylar now.

_Thanks again, Peter._

Claire breaks the tension by turning on her heel and stalking away. Noah follows her, leaving Angela with this terrible new son of hers, but any relief he felt is dissipated by the slight figure lurking at the end of the hall, taking in the whole confrontation.

Elle greets Claire in typical charming fashion. "Like you wouldn't hit that til it broke."

"Creepy Elle?" Claire stops and stares, nonplussed, and doesn't – thank God – seem to have processed Elle's disgustingly phrased comment. "Didn't you go to my school for like, two weeks?"

"I was on assignment, Cheer Bear. Hi Noah. Almost caught you back in California."

"Sure you did, Elle." Noah says genially. She's still trying for validation from him. "Remember what I told you about playing with fire."

This fascination with Sylar is no good for her. And now that he's working for the Company, Noah's worried that Elle will have too many opportunities to get too close. He knows what happened to her in at least one future. Still – if it's going to be one of them, Noah would throw Elle to the wolves every time. It's sad. But there it is.

Elle quirks a smile. "Not too worried about getting burned." A ball of blue lightning flickers in her upraised hand. Showing off for Claire.

Blue light in her eyes. "Peter got it from you."

"That's not all." Elle agrees suggestively. _Damn it, Bob,_ Noah thinks, irritated._ Would it have killed you to give your daughter enough affection to stop her throwing herself at crazy men? _

"Nice to see you again, Elle." Noah says firmly, ending the bitchy stare contest. As they pass Elle the girls hold each other's gaze like cats. Neither wants to turn her back to the other. And Noah's torn, again – he has to admire the way Claire held her own. But he doesn't want someone as frankly screwed up as Elle anywhere near his daughter. He doesn't want this whole screwed up situation to touch his daughter in any way. He wants Claire to be able to go back to cheerleading tryouts, and colouring banners, and the bears from around the world that have been packed in a box in her closet since they moved to California. Noah's not going to pretend that didn't hurt. But in a way he knows it's right that Claire doesn't love them anymore, those stupidly grinning little symbols of every time he abandoned her. He doesn't want her to grow up. But there's nothing else she can do.

Except – obviously – become a crazy woman-child like Elle Bishop.

Noah rests a hand on Claire's shoulder. She stops and looks up at him. "You did good." Noah tells her, with an effort.

And Claire relaxes into the first real smile he's seen from her in months.

It's worth it.


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks maxwell02, I'm glad you like Elle too! She will definitely make more appearances in this fic, starting now! Thanks to sarahroseserena, faithfulwriter and maria, and thanks Ambrosien – I would love to get another, longer review from you! Thanks Lucas4everPeyton – I wasn't completely sure what you didn't like about this fic – is it the interaction between Peter and Claire that you feel is off base, or is it the whole relationship you don't think is plausible? Can you please make it a bit clearer, I enjoyed getting your criticism, and I'm glad you find it creepy. Special thanks go this chapter to Miss S for most of Elle's disgustingly phrased comments (including last chapter's), and for Sylar's Scripture Knowledge prize (we figured having a religious mom he would know the sexy bits – for those playing at home, please refer to the Song of Songs and Julian May's Galactic Milieu trilogy).

**18**

"The Bennets have left Costa Verde."

"I know, Adam." Peter replies, looking around. He shuts his door. Lowers his voice. "She's safe. You still being followed?"

"Think so. They didn't get disappeared by the Company?"

Kind of. Peter's still scared by how pleased with herself Claire has been since yesterday, how much like Noah Bennet she seems sometimes. Peter, of all people, knows how addictive power can be. He doesn't like how much Claire likes the taste.

"They're safe. I told you."

"Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Adam." He says sarcastically.

Peter has to take a breath and remind himself that he'd have wanted to know. "Thank you."

"See you Monday. Bring Claire." Adam suggests, as an afterthought.

Peter hangs up. It's a moment before he realises that Adam knows Claire's with him. Now, how could he know that? Unless it was a lucky guess – but nothing in Peter's life ever seems to be coincidence, these days, and he doesn't like this.

Peter knocks tentatively on her door. When Claire opens it, he just sort of stands there. Like an idiot. They haven't talked since the other day, and he doesn't really know what he came here to say. He wants to make it right. But how to do that, other than… how to do that in a way he can live with, Peter doesn't know.

"Hi."

"Hey."

There's an awkward silence. There's so much Peter can't say. The last thing Claire said to him in this room was _I hate you_.

"So. How… are you?" Stupid. Peter knows how she is. He's seen three of her in the last two days, and all of them are melting together in the girl before him. "How are _we_?"

Claire folds her arms. Her eyes are downcast. "We're okay."

"Are we?"

"I don't know," she admits. Meets his eyes. "Are we?"

He doesn't know either. "I want us to be."

"Yeah." Claire unfolds her arms, tucking her thumbs into her jean pockets. "Me too."

That seems to be all he's going to get. He can't say sorry for what's happened, not again, and Claire's not apologising for what she did, for what she said. They're hurt. But they heal.

"Here you are." Ma says, coming down the hallway towards them. She looks slightly apprehensive. "Noah's been called away. Bob's assigned a new agent to Gabriel for this assignment, but I want the two of you to go along as well."

"Called away? Where?"

"Family emergency. Poor Sandra's cracking up again under the strain. Noah and the Haitian may be gone for a few days."

"That what you told Bob?" Peter asks.

Ma smiles. Pats his cheek. "Exactly. Our man in Primatech has located paintings three through seven – but no one outside this family is to know. Not Gabriel, either." She adds.

When Peter catches Claire's eye, there's an excitement there that he doesn't like. Ma sits them down in Claire's room and briefs them quickly. They're driving to Maine to ensure a woman called Victoria Pratt is safe and aware of the danger Company founders are in. They're to bring her back, if she's willing, to stay under Company protection until they catch the killer.

"And our real assignment?" Claire asks. She's getting used to the way this family works.

"That was Noah's job. It's yours now. You and Peter are to persuade Victoria to tell you the codes to the Company vault, without exciting the suspicions of Gabriel or Elle."

"Elle?" Peter says, dismayed.

"Gabriel's new partner." Ma turns to Claire. "You're also to watch Gabriel closely. Whatever you do, don't let him kill Victoria. We were friends once."

Victoria Pratt. Unlikely that there'd be two Company founders called Victoria. Peter's not sure what to do. Should he call Adam? But Adam's surely still in California… and then there's that unsettling business of the phone call… no, better not.

"Elle can zap Sylar with lightning if he gets out of hand," Peter thinks aloud. "But maybe I should absorb a different ability for this."

"_No_."

"Why not?"

Claire gets up and goes over to the mirror. "I don't think it's necessary."

And after that she goes cold on him again. Peter can't figure her out. Ma provides them with tasers and tranquilliser guns, but vetoes actual firearms until they've learned to use them properly. Claire won't allow any discussion of Peter taking on a different ability, and Ma seems to agree with her, and by the time the car pulls up to meet them Peter's irritable and frustrated. He can see Elle in the driver's seat. Sylar's sitting in the passenger seat, looking totally relaxed and at his ease.

Claire and Peter get into the backseat, and Peter tries not to feel like this car is a trap.

"Great," Elle says acidly. "We're double-dating with Touched by an Uncle Barbie."

"Nice to see you too, Elle." Peter replies.

She doesn't know anything. She's just taking cheap shots at them. Sylar doesn't say a word, but he meets Peter's gaze in the rear view mirror and smiles.

"I'm not saying me and Sylar'd be a fairytale romance or anything, but you guys are like… daytime talk show back there."

"What makes you think _you're_ here with Sylar?" Claire retorts. She's just needling Elle back, but Peter sees a flash of interest in Sylar's eyes. Claire catches it. Looks away in disgust.

"I was here first, you don't get to shotgun the serial killer." Elle teases, with something underlying it – oh, no – Elle's _jealous_. Of _Claire_. Could she get any crazier? "But he's your uncle too, anyway. Man, your family is more screwed up than mine. Especially if all that sexual tension between these guys is going somewhere, am I right?" Elle indicates Sylar and Peter with a nod.

"Can we just – do this in silence?" Peter asks.

"Wonder how many lucky ladies have gotten to hear that."

"Elle, shut up."

They drive in silence for almost ninety seconds before Elle comes up with, "My niece is my babymama… and our baby can fly!"

"Shut _up_, Elle."

Claire turns to Peter. "How long is this trip going to take?"

"About seven hours." Sylar replies. He smiles at her. "Might as well get comfortable."

"Oh my _God_." Claire says loudly. She digs a scratched old ipod out of her purse and jams the headphones into her ears. Curls up into the side of her seat and closes her eyes. There's a tinny, abrasive noise of her music going up loud enough to damage a normal person's eardrums.

"No professionalism." Elle says, disappointed. That leaves Peter as her only target. She shifts tack. "You fell off the radar back there in Texas. One minute the Haitian was after you, the next you were gone."

"I teleported. To Claire." Peter adds, to annoy her.

"That's so sweet. The family that teleports together… I don't know. Probably does crazy perverted shit together with their powers, I guess – I mean, you'd know."

Is she seriously going to bait him for seven hours? Peter feels a surge of resentment towards Claire for abandoning him.

"It's my family too, you know." Sylar murmurs. But he's looking at Claire in the rearview. Elle catches his remark. Follows his gaze. And as if venting the irritation Peter feels, a burst of crackling blue electricity fries Claire's ipod, sparking and popping, shooting up the white wires.

"Fuck!" Claire leaps upright, yanking the earbuds away from her. The damage to her skin is healing already, but her ipod's screwed. "Why are you such a _bitch_?"

Claire looks like she's about to murder her. But Elle just smiles.

"I can fix it." Sylar offers. Elle's smile disappears.

"No." Claire shoves the broken ipod back into her purse. She goes back to how she was sitting before, but now she's staring out the window.

"Stings, huh?" Elle asks helpfully.

Claire doesn't say anything. But Peter saw her jump when the light exploded, and he saw only surprise on her face. Still no pain. "You could try to get some sleep." Peter says.

In response, Elle turns the radio on. And up.

It's going to be a long seven hours.

After a little while Peter realises Claire's fallen into a troubled sleep, despite the loud music. She hasn't been sleeping well lately, but even knowing that he feels warm and pleased, because falling asleep here, in this car, implies that she trusts him to protect her. Her head's at a weird angle. It won't be hurting her. But Peter balls his jacket up anyway, and moves over to pillow it under her head. He murmurs her name to get her to lift her head. Claire mumbles something incoherent. Just when he's got it arranged right she follows him back to his side, the jacket dropping uselessly to the seat as she curls into him, cushioning her head on his chest. He has to lean back against the door, shifting to get her comfortable, and even though Peter knows she's going to be mad when she wakes up he can't bear to push her away. She's so soft and heavy with sleep. And when Claire's settled in his arms, her dreams seem to settle too.

It's sort of perfect.

Except for the killers in the front seat. Elle catches his eye in the rearview, and Peter gives her a death glare. If she wakes Claire… but Elle just gives him a knowing smile. Sylar's watching the world go by and doesn't seem to have noticed. But Peter's not fooled. His arms tighten around Claire. He checks his hands out of habit – but they're not glowing. Of course they're not.

Claire sleeps for an hour, nuzzling closer to Peter a couple of times, making him wonder if you can die of never wanting something to end. But in a way, he's actually glad Elle and Sylar are here. When Elle drives faster than she needs to over a bumpy patch of road and Claire stirs, if it weren't for their glowering presence in the front Peter thinks nothing could have made him let her go. She pushes herself off him unsteadily. Her hand on his heart.

"Hey."

Claire smiles sleepily at him. "Hey."

It's sort of perfect.

Until Peter sees her remember where they are. Who they are. Claire moves back into her own seat. Reaches for the seatbelt, then drops it. Busies herself with her purse, her compact, smoothing her hair, tidying the smudged liner under her eyes. Doesn't look at him. "How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for us all to get diabetes off you two." Elle says. She simpers. "It was so sweet. Wasn't it sweet, Gabriel?"

Sylar gives her a sardonic look. Peter feels hot and irritated.

Elle sighs. "Worst road trip ever. I'm stopping for lunch."

They eat in silence. Except Claire, who buys five bottles of diet coke instead of food. When they're ready to go Elle checks her watch and decides it's too late to call this meal lunch – and apparently, if what they just ate was dinner, it's not only appropriate but imperative that she have dessert. And then she wonders if she wants to buy a drink. Reads the back of every bottle of diet soda in the store. Complains loudly about how no one carries the specific brand of soda she likes anymore. Covertly fuses the lock on the ice-cream freezer. In the end, Peter tells her he's going to go see Victoria Pratt now, if she doesn't mind, and if she's that busy here he's happy to pick her up on the way home.

On the way back to the car, Sylar stops Claire by offering her a small white object. It's her ipod. He must have taken it out of her purse.

"Consider it a down payment on that favour I owe you."

Claire looks torn. Her hand rises uncertainly. Sylar takes it, ignoring her flinch, and puts the ipod into it. The earbuds swing from her hand on wires like skipping ropes.

"Can you fix it?" She asks, in a low voice.

Sylar smiles. "I can fix anything."

Then he leans down and murmurs something into her ear that makes Claire's face change. Horror. Then – something else. She nods. Not looking at him. Elle catches up with Peter as Claire gets into the car.

"What's going on?"

Peter brushes her off. He's really not in the mood to talk to Elle right now. When he gets into the backseat Claire's drinking diet coke through a red straw, and she's laid the other three bottles on the seat between them like a barrier.

"Can I have one of those?" Elle, again. Claire hands her one without argument.

Peter sits there wondering what favour it is Sylar owes her. What Claire wants him to fix. And he sits there feeling light, without her weight. Cold, without her warmth. Dead, without the steady beat of her heart, the deep, even rhythm of her breath.

And the way Claire bites on that straw is _seriously_ distracting.

It's going to be a long six hours.

X

It's dark when they arrive at Victoria Pratt's address. The lights are all out. It doesn't look anything like that nightmare house where Claire was murdered one fine morning, so why can't she stop hearing those whispered words? _I can fix anything_, he said. Leant in, far too close. _But I might have to take another look under the hood_.

Thinking about submitting to that again – _no_. She _can't_. But the nail file Claire keeps in her pocket still didn't do a damn thing to her arms in the bathroom, and she's spent the last six hours thinking it over. Control. She needs control. If life was nothing but sleeping soundly in Peter's arms… but it's not, and she can't think about that, either.

"Maybe she's not home." Can't Elle ever shut up?

Sylar surveys the house. "Something's not right."

Claire's taser is in her hand. The night air's cold. She's not even sure she knows how to use the damn thing. Elle's the one with the gun. The lightning. Sylar's the one with the telekinesis. So why is Claire the one walking up the drive?

"Slow down." Peter says quietly, by her ear. "Listen."

She is listening. There's nothing. Her nerves are starting to sing, and Peter's presence beside her is electric. She's vaguely aware of the others following them.

The door's open. Inside it's pitch black. Claire very deeply does not want to be the first one through that door. Peter has a torch. But the narrow beam of light makes Claire more frightened than the total darkness did. She can't help imagining _things_ just outside the range of that beam, things that could shudder into sight – decaying things, pallid things. Worse things.

Sylar.

Which is stupid, because with Peter through the door, torchlight playing over the blandly furnished living room, Sylar is right behind Claire. Elle lights a crackling blue orb in her cupped hand, Claire can see the glow of it at the edges of her vision, and she knows that if she turns around now she'll see him in that flickering light.

Claire moves away from the devil she knows. Follows Peter. The living room's clear. "Better split up." Peter says softly. He's right. One of us, one of them – one passive regenerator, one active murderer.

Elle gestures for Claire to follow her. Peter and Sylar check the kitchen, while Claire and Elle go down a narrow hallway. The bathroom is clear. Claire has a bad moment when Elle whispers to her to open the shower curtain, but the shadows shift to reveal only an innocent white tub. They move on to the master bedroom. And somehow Claire knows what she's going to see before she sees it.

A darker shape outlined on the dark bedspread slowly comes clearer as Elle and her light come closer. It's a woman. Victoria Pratt. Her chest is obliterated in a confusion of black blood and torn colourless fabric, and there's a small dark hole in the centre of her forehead, for good measure. In her outstretched hand there's a small ripped out square of a photograph. They're too late.

So much blood. Not Claire's own. Claire carefully takes the photograph, but her fingers encounter something slick on the glossy surface. She brings it closer to Elle's blue light. The helix, like Angela described it, like the one around her neck – smeared on the picture in blood, yes, that's the way Angela described it too. And then Claire realises what's wrong.

"Come on." She whispers urgently, taking Elle's arm and dragging her from the room. They meet Peter and Sylar in the hallway. "We gotta go."

"You found her?"

In response, Claire gives Peter the photo. Her fingers come away red. Peter looks at her, startled. The blood's still wet. "He's still here."

"Could be."

Peter's face hardens. "Then we can still catch him."

And Claire remembers, too late, that whoever shot Victoria Pratt attacked Peter's mom. Sylar makes a twitching motion with his fingers and a series of slamming noises fall over and over each other in this small house – every door and window has shut itself tight. If he's still inside the house, he's trapped. Sylar's face is deeply unpleasant to look at.

And Claire remembers – far too late – that Angela is his mother too.

But when they take each room, each closet in turn, the whole house turns out to be empty – apart from the late Victoria. Claire leaves the bedroom, preferring the scary dark living room to the poorly lit bedroom that smells of guns and blood. She can't stay in that room. They were too late. And now Victoria Pratt is dead.

Claire's son stares at her accusingly across the timelines.

"What now?" Peter's asking Elle.

"Now the regular police take over. There's no evidence of any ability here, she got shot a couple times, could happen to anyone. I got pics for our records, and we file the photo with the helix on it, but the rest is a job for the cops."

The others come back into the living room. Claire hates that dim light.

"Our fingerprints are all over this house."

"Good point." Elle thinks it over, then smiles happily. "In that case, time to hand this one over to the fire fighters."

She heads back down the hallway before Claire can figure out what she meant. But then she can smell fire. Light flickers at the end of the hall – not a blue, unhealthy electrical light, but the clean, devouring light of a campfire. Elle makes a stop in every room, and when she comes back, she's like an angel bringing fire and the sword to a sinful people. Lightning bursts out to the curtains, the couch and chairs. Fire takes everything.

"Come on, let's go." Peter urges her.

With a disoriented feeling, Claire realises Elle and Sylar are gone. How long has she been standing here? The fire has spread quickly. Peter's standing in the doorway, and everything behind him is cold and dark, but here in the living room Claire feels only a pleasant warmth. The light's so beautiful. All their mistakes are being wiped out by this beautiful light. Peter lunges towards her and grabs her hand. "Let's _go_."

When the icy air hits her Claire wonders what the hell she was thinking just now. She drops Peter's hand and follows him to the car. And the misery comes for her again. Peter goes to call Angela, tell her what happened, but Claire takes the phone from him. She should be the one to do this. She should to be the one to tell Angela she's failed their sons. The phone rings once. Twice. "Peter?"

"Nathan?"

Claire listens. Streetlights go by, one by one, outside her window. The pain in her stomach, behind her eyes, is very close to physical. "Okay. Okay. We're on our way."

She cuts the connection.

Claire turns to Peter. "Your mom was attacked. She's in a coma. Trapped in her head, somehow, she's not responding to any stimulus. Nathan said – Nathan said to come home."

Her eyes fill with tears and she can't go on. Claire doesn't know why she cares so much about Angela, but after what's happened today this is a blow she just can't take. She wishes she were still inside the burning building, in that bright light, with the cleansing fire purifying everything it touches. Peter draws her into his arms. Claire doesn't care what they think. She never realised how much she's come to depend on Angela being there, these last few days.

"Two killers." Elle says.

"One killer, one person with some kind of mental ability." Sylar corrects her thoughtfully. He's taken over the driving. He watches the road, intent on something else, and it's strange to see that clever mind turned to help them.

Claire knows she should sit up. But she can't. Not yet. The world only ever gives Claire Bennet perfect moments so it can rip them away – Peter, back from the dead – her son's small hands, his soft hair – her family, together and functional for five full minutes. There'll be time to let go of Peter when they get home. All the time in the world.

"You tired?" Peter murmurs. She shouldn't be holding his hand. But his knuckles are healed, unbroken, and when she's touching Peter it kind of feels like nothing bad has ever happened. Or ever will.

"No." Claire says quietly, so those two in the front can't hear. "You should sleep."

She doesn't say she'll protect him. But it's implied. And despite everything Peter smiles at her. Her heart breaks a little. Claire settles back down against his chest and listens to him breathe, watches the streetlights go by, tries not to think about anything. After a while Peter falls asleep. She didn't really expect him to, and Claire feels touched by his trust in her. Sylar and Elle are silent in the front seat. Elle's blonde head is resting on the passenger window. She's asleep too. She's going to wake up with a hell of a headache. Sylar meets Claire's gaze in the rearview, and she feels a sudden fierce surge of protectiveness for the man beneath her. Sylar turns his attention back to the road. But he looks amused, and she remembers the last time she was alone in a car with him, and she must have done something because Peter stirs and strokes her back drowsily before dropping off again.

Claire lies there, watches fewer and fewer sets of headlights pass as the hours tick by, and tries not to think about the long strand of blonde hair caught in Sylar's hand when they brought him in. By the time they arrive at the hospital Elle and Peter have woken up, and Claire's disentangled herself reluctantly from Peter. Fixed her hair. Her makeup. Getting out of the car feels like something's come to an end.

X

Funny how the only Petrelli Sylar doesn't feel remotely connected to is Nathan. At two in the morning, under the hospital's fluorescent lights, Nathan Petrelli doesn't look quite so smooth and charming as he does on TV. He gets up from his seat beside Angela's bed and hugs Peter. Sylar doesn't miss the flash of jealousy on Claire's face.

"What happened?" Peter asks.

Nathan shrugs. "We don't know. Ma was in her office, I went in to check on her, and she was…" He stops. Stares at Sylar. "What is he doing here?"

"She's my mother too." Sylar says coolly. Angela looks so small, lying there under that stiff white sheet, her hands folded neatly over her stomach. Her nails are as red as the cuts on her face. It still feels strange to think of her as his mother.

"Victoria Pratt was dead when we got there." Claire says, distracting Nathan. "Shot in the chest, then the head – I think she was already dead when he did that."

Leaving that brain of hers destroyed. He doesn't know what Victoria Pratt could do – and now he never will. It could be a coincidence. But it's not. Someone knew he would be there, someone knew they were coming for Victoria, and someone knew they were leaving Angela unprotected. Sylar tells Nathan that. He responds by stepping in front of Claire and glaring.

Elle makes her excuses and leaves. She looks profoundly uncomfortable to be there, and Sylar doesn't blame her. From what he knows of Elle's history, being around a family who actually care about each other, in however dysfunctional a way, must be difficult. He's not enjoying it that much either. Peter sinks into the chair Nathan left. That leaves Nathan standing between Sylar and the rest of his family – Claire's almost entirely hidden behind him.

Peter takes Angela's hand. Kisses her forehead. What's a little planned mass murder between a mother and her son? Sylar thinks he got off pretty lightly being abandoned, all things considered.

Claire sits down on Angela's other side. "Victoria Pratt's dead, Angela. She died before we got there. I failed them. I'm so sorry." She says, in a low voice. She looks up at Nathan. "Did she tell you who he was? The guy who wants to release the virus?"

"No."

"This family has serious issues with information sharing. Did you try Matt Parkman?"

"Yeah. He went home, couldn't find a sitter for Molly. He got nothing. She's not asleep, she's not comatose, her mind's just… locked."

Angela's face is locked. Closed off. And Sylar's momentarily back in that house, looking at her granddaughter lying there – locked. Staring without seeing at the blood spray on the ceiling. That line on her forehead… and he still can't explain that feeling when she slowly sat up, those unseeing eyes so green under that red dripping line, and he saw her live and breathe despite everything he'd done. Special. The way he was special, now. But locked away, her mind as completely inaccessible as the workings of her brain had been open to him moments before.

A garden enclosed. A fountain sealed up.

_My sister, my spouse._

Truer than he knew. And then that damn song again, when he felt the sting of the hypodermic and saw her eyes, not dead this time but furiously alive – thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes, he thought, dazed.

_Welcome to the family._

Soror mea. Sponsa.

Sylar focuses on the moment. Peter's just looking at his mother, not doing anything particularly helpful or heroic. Nathan's telling them he's got nothing, knows nothing. Claire's the only one attempting to take charge of this situation, and Angela was right - her sons have disappointed her. Sylar and Claire are the only ones worthy of her. Reluctantly, Claire looks at him. "Do you have any ability that could help us?"

"No." Stings, having to admit it. Matt Parkman's ability might help – used by someone who knew how to get the most out of it, and he's on the point of saying that to Claire when he realises it wouldn't do any good. She's not ready to hear that kind of thing right now. And he's surprised to find he doesn't really want to say it to her.

Claire's phone rings. "You're not meant to have that on in here." Peter says automatically. That's right – Sylar always forgets Petrelli used to be a nurse.

Claire leaves the room to answer. "Dad." She says, relieved. Nathan gives Peter a warning glance and follows her out into the hallway.

Peter and Sylar are alone with Angela.

Even locked away in her own mind Angela's face is regal, indomitable, and Sylar feels a glow of satisfaction knowing that this extraordinary woman is his real mother. He wonders if she's dreaming true dreams in there. If she knows, now, how they're going to get her out. He wonders why she told him about her ability when she hasn't even told Peter.

Peter catches him looking at her.

"Uh – you can hold her hand. If you want."

"You'd trust me?"

"Yeah." Peter admits. "I guess I would."

Now that's – interesting. Does Peter think Angela's safe from him if she doesn't have an ability? Sylar takes the seat Claire left. But he doesn't take Angela's hand. It doesn't feel right. "Why?"

Peter runs a hand through his hair, looking lost. "She's right," he says, not looking at Sylar. "We have issues with the information sharing. Ma told you about the virus?"

She did. But as Peter goes on, Sylar realises Angela only told him the bare minimum about the virus. She didn't mention Peter's precognitive dream, for one thing, and she certainly didn't make any mention of him seeing Sylar's _son_ die of it – he's pretty sure he would remember a small detail like that.

"A son."

Peter nods. Still won't look at him. He doesn't seriously believe it – not until Peter goes on to tell him about assassins from the future coming for Nathan, and the trip he took with his future self to a world six years gone. It's a story so stupid it must be true.

"And his mother?" Sylar's not particularly interested in the boy. He's never liked small children, and the idea that he'd give up everything he is and be content to be Gabriel Gray, waffle-maker, for the sake of one does not appeal.

"You killed her." Peter says shortly. Not too surprising. "Look, the point is, I know who you could become, Gabriel. Someday you could be a man I could trust with my family – our family. You're my brother."

He says that like it's shorthand for a entire debate's worth of arguments. _You're my brother. _And just like that, Peter's bound to do whatever he can to make this work. No matter what Sylar's done. In Peter's world, it really is that simple. Watching Peter Petrelli's mind work is alien – it's kind of touching, and it's also kind of like watching a retarded kid herd cats.

"Dad called," Claire says, coming back into the room with Nathan on her heels. "And then I called Elle and Bob. We're all on the buddy system until Dad gets back. No one's alone. Angela's never alone. Are you okay here?"

She's formally asking both of them. But Peter's the only one whose response she cares about. "We're good."

"Then you should get some sleep." She says, turning to Nathan. He looks tired. And relieved, to have Claire take charge, tell him what needs to be done. "There's a room next door we can use, is that right?"

"Yeah." Nathan clasps her shoulder gratefully. He finds it a relief, having Claire act like Angela. Personally, Sylar finds it sexy as hell. That should feel wrong. Or at least weird. But it doesn't. "Single bed and a couch."

After some argument and stalling, it's decided – by Claire – that Peter is to be Nathan's buddy in the far-off, dangerous zone of the room next door. She's worried about leaving either of them alone with Sylar too long. That's what it boils down to. Even though Peter's empathic mimicry seems like more trouble than it's worth, and thanks to that kid in Costa Verde, he can already fly. Peter doesn't want to go. But it's cute, seeing her clumsily play on Nathan's protective instinct, pointing out how tired Peter is, unconsciously adjusting the way she moves, talks, so she's enough like Angela that Nathan agrees with her.

When they're gone, Claire sits down opposite him, in Peter's chair. Angela lies between them. Sylar casts around for a topic of conversation. Three generations of Petrellis in this room, and maybe it's inevitable that he return to the perplexing subject of Noah Gray. "Peter tells me I have a son, in the future."

Claire looks at him, startled. "He told you that?"

"Seemed to think it would give me a vested interest in stopping the virus." Sylar shrugs. "A second-hand story about an imaginary relative."

"Yeah." Claire looks down at Angela's hands, left neatly folded by Peter. Her face softens. "But you haven't seen him. It didn't mean much to me, either, when Peter told me about his dream – but when I _saw_ him..."

"You saw him?"

"He didn't tell you? When his future self brought Peter back, he had Noah with him. Agents were at the house – they wanted him to be safe." Claire's not looking at him, and she's wearing the strangest expression. It's unsettling. Her voice lowers as she speaks. "You can't understand. I didn't understand. But then he was there, and he was so real – he was so small. His hands had syrup on them. He'd spilled syrup down his shirt. He was – the most beautiful… he was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. When I touched him I knew – I would do anything for him. Anything. It was terrifying. And wonderful."

And Sylar understands, now, why Peter didn't tell him this part. "You were his mother."

"Yeah." Claire says softly. "For a moment there, I was."

_You killed her._ Technically, not a lie. The way Claire talks about his son – _their_ son… This fucked up family is a little too close, but Sylar's not sure now he'd have them any other way. And his gaze keeps straying to the smooth skin of Claire's forehead, to the pale, clean glow of her blonde hair, and he thinks about how strange and unlikely it is to see her sitting there across from him, telling him about the son they have, the son she so clearly loves, showing no outward sign of the violence of his attack. Survivor of his hunger. His niece. His only equal.

_Thou art all fair, my love_ – _and there is not a mark on thee._


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks Maria, Wisdom of Insanity and Ambrosien for reviewing! I'm glad you're enjoying Sylar. Here's another short chapter, but it's pretty Sylar-heavy, and the next one will be longer.

**19**

The thing about Angela's hand is – it's right there, and Claire can't take it.

She got Peter and Nathan safely into the other room. They'll sleep now. Elle's with Bob. She's watching Sylar. And Angela's not alone. So everything's okay.

But it doesn't feel okay. Claire leans back in her seat and folds her arms. They suddenly feel so frail and empty, and she realises that Angela sits like this sometimes, with her arms neatly folded, and she wonders if Angela feels this way too. So empty. So alone. She wants her mom – her dad – Nathan, even, strange and unfamiliar as hugging Nathan still is. She wants Mr Muggles's fast little heart beating excitedly beside her own. She wants Peter. She wants the sweet, maple-syrup-and-poster-paint smell of her small son.

What Claire has is Sylar. And Angela's hand, which Peter or Nathan might take and find comfort in, but she – _they_ – can't. So much for handholding and hugs.

But there are other things Claire wants. Claire wants the rough scrape of the windowsill. The air turned to ice as it tears her. The clean clear blaze of pain. And then the thoughtless euphoria as she lies there on the road, her broken body pulling itself together again, fixing and mending and erasing every trace of damage, the total silence in her mind. The _peace_ of it.

"You said you could fix me."

She's broken into Sylar's reverie. For a moment he looks like he doesn't know what she's talking about. He glances at Angela like he'd rather not discuss this in front of her. "Is now really the time?"

"No, I'm sure when my dad gets back he'll give us plenty of quality family time." Her voice is dull. The sarcasm doesn't quite work. Probably because _Gabriel_ here isn't her family. Possibly because she can't stop seeing Victoria Pratt in the woman between them.

"Why?" He's honestly curious.

"Pain is – " But Claire has to stop. Because she doesn't know what she can say. And then she just feels angry, because Sylar's tricked her into telling him so much already. "It's mine." She says flatly. "You took it. And I want it back."

Sylar stares at her for a moment. Then he smiles. Maddeningly. "I could give you something else," he suggests.

Claire doesn't understand. And then she does. "Fuck you," she spits. Gets up with a traitorous scrape of her chair legs. How dare he. How _dare_ he, when her arms are aching for that boy, that perfect little boy who will never exist. She never heard him call her _mom_. Never saw him smile. But she knows that she will never be able to imagine it right, because the reality would be – would _have been_ – surprising and amazing and not at all what she expected but wonderful, purely wonderful, and she'll never see it now. She'll never hear it. She'll never know.

Her heart hurts. Her eyes blur.

The lights flicker.

Light shudders in and out of being. The fluorescents hiss and buzz. "Elle."

"No."

Sylar stands. Angela on the bed, Peter and Nathan next door, her family safe in hiding and on assignment. The lights go out.

And flicker on. Claire is in the hallway. The school hallway. Outside the locker room. The light wavers, but doesn't go out this time – of course not. It didn't go out again until –

No. It had already gone out. Because it went out and Jackie said – Jackie said –

_Run_.

Claire's soaked in blood and she's in the hallway, there's blood on the ground but no girl lying there, blood on the Homecoming banner and sticky, viscous blood matting Claire's hair and most of it's hers – but some of it's Jackie's. She can't have travelled in time. Her cheerleading uniform has Jackie's blood on it, her own blood on it, and most importantly she's _wearing_ her cheerleading uniform. Angela's gone. The hospital's gone.

And Claire's in the _hallway_, the _hallway_, the _hallway_ –

The figure in the cap. The coat and the cap. The faceless man.

If you think you're dreaming you pinch yourself and it doesn't hurt. If you're already running your heart's hammering too loudly for you to remember when exactly you started crying with terror. If you're running past the trophy cabinet and Peter's not there you've gone too far.

Claire has gone too far. The locker room. Pitch black. She holds her breath, tries to stifle the sobs, but God she's just so _scared_, and she can hear the faceless man coming for her.

"Claire!"

He's not supposed to have a voice.

_Run_. The hallway. The banner. The trophy cabinet and _Peter is not here_. Claire screams his name.

Someone grabs her by the wrist, whirls her around. She shrieks and hits out, kicks, and he slams her against the lockers but she doesn't feel a thing, just breathless panic at his strength, just a wrenching fear at how close he is, the faceless man, the killer. If she could stop screaming she could see his face. But she can't.

She _can't_.

"Claire, it's me. Stop it. Stop it!"

He tears off his cap and throws it to the ground. Forces her chin up, and for one dizzy moment Claire can't understand what Sylar's doing under the faceless man's cap. The hallway swims. There's no gap. One moment he's holding her against the lockers, the next Sylar's holding her up, her feet have somehow misplaced the ground and she's clutching at his coat with fingers she can't feel. The adrenaline's caught up with her and it kicks.

"Come on. We're getting out of here. Stand up." Sylar demands.

Yes. They need to get out of here. They shouldn't be here.

This is the worst place.

"We're in hell."

Sylar makes an exasperated noise. "We're not in hell," he says irritably. "We're in high school. And it's not even a real high school. The one with the mental ability's come back for Angela, he's the one who put us here and we _have to go_. Stand up."

Angela. Clarity. Someone's trapped them in a nightmare so he can get to Angela. The world hasn't ended and they're not in hell. Claire's found her footing.

"How do we get out of here?"

Her voice is still shaking. But with a small nod, Sylar lets go of her, and together they try the doors, the windows. Everything's shut tight except the loop of the locker room, the hallway, and the trophy cabinet – blood on the floor, the banner. Empty space where she should have met Peter. Empty space where Jackie's body should be. Claire can't take much more of this.

"It's a loop. A pattern." He says.

"But it's wrong."

Sylar stops. "Maybe it's not wrong enough."

No.

_Not here_, she wants to plead. _Not in front of the trophy cabinet_, she wants to say. This is where she met Peter. But she can't say anything. There isn't another way. And after all – Peter never really loved her, did he? Peter didn't love her enough to save her from Sylar.

And Peter doesn't love her enough to save her from what she does now.

X

The hospital. Sylar's on the floor and his arms are empty. It takes a moment longer before Claire opens her eyes, and by that time he's standing, feeling like he's been hit by a train. They're back. Angela's safe on the bed, Peter's helping Claire to her feet, and Nathan's pacing the hallway outside the room, talking to someone on his cell. "What happened?"

"I heard Claire scream." Peter says. "When we got in here you were both passed out on the ground – there was this guy – " He shakes his head. "He was a blur. I couldn't see his face, I can't remember what he looked like."

"The one with the mental ability."

"Yeah. And another guy, wearing a hood. We chased them down the hall but it was like – they disappeared. We just couldn't see them anymore. They got away." Peter's so frustrated. Both killers – or, no. Two killers. There may be more than two. "What happened to you?"

"Trapped us like Angela," Claire says huskily. "A nightmare."

She's pale. So strange to see her trying to collect herself now, when the sight of that school sent her into a blind panic only moments ago. Sylar wonders if there's a similar place in Angela's mind. Something that overrides everything she's made of herself. Someplace she thinks of as hell.

"Parkman's coming back." Nathan says, coming back into Angela's room. "He's bringing Molly with him, so as far as she knows you're Gabriel Gray." That's for Sylar. "What happened?"

Claire's been standing awkwardly at Peter's side, but when Nathan turns his attention to her she shakes her head. Bites her lip. And goes over and hugs him. He looks surprised for a moment, then his arms come up around her. "Hey. It's okay."

"I know." She says. Doesn't sound like it. And she doesn't let go. Nathan looks at Peter over her head.

"What happened?"

"We got trapped in a nightmare. Hers." Sylar says.

Nathan glares at him. This seems to be his default position on Sylar so far. "How'd you get out?"

"We broke the pattern."

Claire goes still in Nathan's arms. Then she breaks the embrace and looks up at him. "I let him kill me."

"You did _what_?" Nathan lets go of her abruptly and takes a menacing step towards Sylar. Claire grabs his arm.

"It's not his fault," she says quickly. "It wasn't real. I did it to save Angela."

Sylar folds his arms and tries not to smile. Kill her? She thought fast and lied convincingly, he'll give her that – Nathan shakes off her hand, but doesn't come any closer. Peter is wearing a dark look but doesn't say anything. And Claire's eyes threaten Sylar with a fate worse than death if he says a word. He won't. He'll just relive it later – Claire in his arms, clutching at him like he's the only real thing in the world, her body betraying her in countless tiny, maddening ways as she kisses him and tries to pretend she doesn't feel anything – hell, he's reliving it _now_, and though he doesn't dare smile… Claire knows.

She turns away. It's a small victory.

When Parkman arrives, they hear him coming. He calls Nathan when he's parked, for one thing, and then he's careful to give them plenty of advance notice as he walks down the hall.

"Matt Parkman to see Angela Petrelli! Matt Parkman coming down the hall! Matt Parkman is here!"

Parkman appears in the doorway, with a small girl in tow – Molly, that's right, her name's Molly. She looks like she's dying of embarrassment. He's heard about her before, somewhere, but he can't remember what ability she's supposed to have. Molly. His fingers itch.

"Hi." Parkman says lamely.

"Mind telling me what that was about?" Nathan asks.

Parkman shrugs evasively. "My ability, you know. Sometimes I pick stuff up… I don't know. Doesn't seem fair to sneak up on people."

But his eyes flickered between Peter and Claire when he said it, and Sylar knows he knows. And so does Nathan.

Peter greets Parkman warmly. Like a man with nothing to hide. Parkman says how great it is Peter survived, Peter says thanks, Parkman can't quite look Peter in the eye and his gaze stays firmly away from Claire when he's talking to Peter. Predictable. Boring. And then Peter tells Parkman about the attack, and what happened to Sylar and Claire – adjusting the minor detail of how they broke the pattern, for Molly's benefit. Sylar fills in the gap with his own lie. "She thought it was the killer, but when I took off the cap and she saw it was me – " He spreads his hands. Smiles. Dear old uncle Gabriel. Nothing to be scared of, Claire, not anymore.

It's hardly a lie at all. She nearly fainted with relief. Held onto him. And the level of cognitive dissonance _there_ is – frankly, a little disturbing. Claire won't look at him when she confirms the story. Parkman knows it's a lie, but that doesn't matter.

Parkman sighs. "I gotta be honest with you, Peter. I couldn't get into Angela's head when she was conscious, and now she's… locked down. I really don't think there's anything I can do."

"You're Claire." The little girl speaks up. Claire smiles uncertainly at her, Molly relaxes. Gives her a dazzling smile back. "I saw you at Kirby Plaza. Matt says Peter's your uncle, but I thought he was your boyfriend."

She laughs. No one else does. Parkman looks like he wishes the ground would open up and swallow him. And then Peter saves the day, smiling down at Molly, talking lightly. "Claire's my niece, Molly. And she's also my best friend."

"Close family, huh?" Molly's watching Claire with longing, and belatedly, Sylar remembers where he's heard her name. He killed her family. The dad… something cold. That's right. Ice. Not an ability he particularly misses. The mom was useless; he got her out of the way first. The kid – Molly – he never did find her. She mustn't have been home.

Shame.

"Pretty close," Peter affirms, but there's guilt in his eyes now. Nathan folds his arms.

"You have no idea." Sylar says, amused.

"Okay." Parkman says loudly. "I'm going to try again. If everyone could just – just kind of step back."

If everyone could just – kind of step back while Sylar opened up that thick head of his, that would be great too. And probably a lot more helpful. With Matt Parkman's ability… but Angela's comatose form gives him pause.

_You're better than that, Gabriel. You're stronger than that. You're my true son, my strong son, and I know you have it in you to be truly special._ Angela's soft, sure voice echoes in his head. She told him about his father. How Arthur overcame a hunger similar to his own. And how she knew he could be better than Arthur ever was. And then Peter told him about a future where some unimaginable version of himself raises Claire's son, fights that hunger every day, talks about the hunger with bitterness and loathing.

_What if it was to save you?_

But he knows the answer. And so he resists the temptation to tear the ability straight out of that useless lump Parkman. Watches him squint and turn his head this way and that, as though listening for a radio signal that doesn't exist. Watches him struggle. Watches him give up.

Sylar catches Claire's gaze and she's seen it too. She lays a hand on Parkman's arm. "Try again."

"You don't understand – "

"_Try again."_

"There's not even a _wall_," Parkman expostulates. "There's just silence. There's nothing. Nothing to hang on to, nothing to break through, nothing. _Nothing_. I'm sorry, Claire. But I can't help you."

"I can."

They all turn to look at Molly. She looks smaller now. Frightened. "I can find him. He's the one. It's _him_."

"It's who?" Parkman asks, frowning.

"The one worse than the boogeyman. The nightmare man. The one who can see me," Molly whispers.

Sylar suspects he knows who the 'boogeyman' is, and is kind of insulted that the kid thinks this nightmare guy is somehow worse – even remembering Claire's terror when he took her ability, comparing that reality to the total meltdown her nightmare induced. Even so. He'd like to have another chance to show Molly how scary he can be – and _what_ is it she can do? He folds his arms uncomfortably. Fingers itching.

Too many people try to start talking at once. Parkman's saying no, absolutely not. Nathan's saying vague, can-do things in an authoritative manner, trying to take charge of the situation, automatically putting his own family's welfare over someone else's. Peter's earnestly telling Molly they can protect her.

"This guy's not precognitive, or he'd have known Nathan and Peter were here. We still need a plan before we try anything with him. We need a mind reader. A decent one." Sylar speaks quietly, but Claire tunes out the white noise. She looks at him like she knows exactly what he's implying. What he's suggesting.

"Dad's the one with the plans, we'll wait for him. Matt will do fine. He's got incentive." Claire gestures Molly-wards. He didn't really expect her to encourage him to crack Matty open. It's still disappointing. Sylar shrugs.

"Molly." Claire says, earnestly. She rests her hip on Angela's bed, leaning down to Molly's level. "I know you're scared. I'm scared too. But Angela's my grandmother. She's my _family_. And we need her to help us save the world, and I'd do anything – I've already done things. Scary things. Things I never wanted to do."

"That's debateable." Sylar murmurs.

"Shut up." Nathan. Seems to have pipped Claire and Peter to the post. And – yes, there it is. The glare's on full force.

Peter takes the seat beside Claire, so he can talk directly to Molly too. "If you decide to help us, it won't matter if he can see you. We've got people. Resources. We can hide you in a safe house until the nightmare man's dead. Claire's mom and her brother are in a safe house, you could stay with them. They've got a dog."

They've got a dog. Oh, of course. That makes sense. But somehow between them Peter and Claire are convincing this little girl to help them, and Molly does seem tempted by the prospect of staying in a house with a dog. It shouldn't be surprising. Peter Petrelli has the mind of a child, after all.

Speaking of which…

Nathan glances at Parkman. "She'd be protected from everything. Anyone who wanted to hurt her."

Both men turn to look at Sylar. Is he that obvious? He smiles pleasantly. Wonders what's the most shocking thing he can think loudly about to annoy Parkman – Claire is too obvious. Gives a little too much away. But there's something else about Claire Parkman won't want to hear. _You know, don't you? About Peter and Claire._

Parkman looks at him, startled. He frowns like he's trying to send a message back, but Sylar can't hear anything. Doesn't matter. Sylar smiles. _The Petrelli family's worst-kept secret. I knew as soon as I saw them together. You know, and I know, and Nathan knows, and Peter knows Nathan knows but Nathan doesn't know that. Angela knows everything. Bennet probably does too, but since Peter's still alive I assume he's repressing pretty hard. Claire's trying not to know. And now you know what we know, and doesn't this room suddenly feel a _lot_ smaller?_

Parkman's sufficiently distracted from the issue of Molly. He rubs his forehead, hard. But Sylar doesn't feel like stopping yet. Kissing Claire might be something he'd rather keep to himself for now… but _killing_ Claire…

By the time Parkman and Molly leave, having agreed to wait for Bennet before they make any plans, Matt Parkman's white and he keeps wincing. He's trying to block it out, but Sylar's stronger than he is. Stronger already. Insistently pushing thoughts at him. Pulling those ropes nice and tight, that was an image Parkman didn't like much. And he really hated the saw. So did Sylar, for that matter, but in the absence of his telekinesis he'd had to make do – Claire crying and begging him not to cut her, yes, he lingered on that one for Parkman's benefit. The way her hands gripped the sides of the coffee table. How white her knuckles were. The way they relaxed, near the end. Went limp. The way she stared at the ceiling. Locked inside. And mixed with all these things the softness of her skin, perfume caught in her clothes, her hair, the way her lips parted. Tears on his fingertips, before her blood washed them away.

Parkman's shaking when he pulls the door to.

Sylar might resent other people having powers he doesn't, but there's no denying it.

Having a mind reader around is _fun_.


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer:** If you recognise it, I don't own it.

**AN:** Thanks to reviewers! Time to meet our latest set of Heroes buddy cops… Thanks to MS as usual for her help, any errors left are my own.

**20**

Noah gets back on Sunday afternoon. By this time Bob's moved Ma to a suitably equipped room at the Company's New York offices and Nathan, Claire, Sylar and Peter have been living at the Company, only coming back to the house to sleep. Sleep. That's a laugh. That's why Nathan finally agreed to let Sylar stay at the house – Gabriel, Peter's got to remember to call him Gabriel. Yes. Because none of them really sleep, not much, not often. Not anymore. Doesn't matter that Gabriel's sleeping in the same house as Nathan, as Claire – because no one's really sleeping. Peter's always listening for her scream. For his quiet footsteps. All through the night.

Noah looks as tired and careworn as Nathan when he arrives. Claire goes to him without a word, and he hugs her tight. "Hey, baby." He says quietly.

And Peter aches for her. She's tried for comfort from Nathan, but that doesn't really work for either of them yet, not the way it does for Noah and his daughter. Claire's needed her dad, these past couple days. She hasn't had anyone else. Peter knows why he can't be there for her himself, he knows damn well, and the right thing _hurts_, but Gabriel six years gone was wrong. Peter always has to hold back from Claire. He has to. Even if it hurts. Even if it hurts _her_ – which is so much harder.

Agreeing to leave her in that hospital room with Sylar was almost impossible. _Trust her._ Easier said than done. But that broken girl with the dark ponytail, the dark eyeliner, that insane girl taunts him with glimmers of her feline eyes in Claire's green gaze. Peter knew he wasn't going to sleep. And when she screamed his name, that desperation shattered the chains holding him to the lumpy couch. _A nightmare. Hers._ The way she clung to his arm. The way she let go.

"Is Mom okay?"

"Yeah. She's okay."

"And Lyle?"

"And Lyle, and Mr Muggles. They're all okay."

Noah lets her go, and Claire looks calmer than she has for days. She nods slightly. They're all okay – so, he's found all the missing paintings. They can't discuss this in front of him. Gabriel. His presence is still a shadow hanging over them. But now Noah's back they'll have a plan for this nightmare guy, and in the absence of any buddy system Gabriel can get the hell out of the house. Peter catches Nathan's gaze. Huh. Great minds do think alike.

"Are you okay?" Noah asks Claire.

She makes a good attempt to smile. "I'm okay. So's Angela."

"Which is just as well," Bob says, coming into the room with Elle behind him. "She's stable. And well protected. She can spare you girls for your first assignment."

"First?" Claire says.

At the same time, with the same incredulity, Elle says, "_Girls?_"

"First assignment together." Bob clarifies. "Say hello to your new partner, Elle."

This is not good. Bob hands the girls a folder each, and after an electric glare at one another they flip them open.

"_High school?"_ They say in unison. Glare again.

Glare at Bob.

Who accepts it with equanimity. "Angela wanted you to continue your education, Claire, and St. Anne's is a very prestigious school. She also wanted you to begin your training in a low-risk environment. I hear they have a good cheerleading team." He adds, off-hand. "You are Claire Bennet, illegitimate daughter of Nathan Petrelli. You took four months off school for clinical depression after your best friend was murdered. Claire Butler no longer exists. Elle, you are Claire's cousin on her mother's side. You'll be living in Angela's house. That'll simplify things."

"No! Not _again_. Not with her. I'm too _old_ for high school, Daddy." Elle protests.

Bob surveys her dispassionately. "You're looking a little tired," he concedes. "We'll have you held back a year. We've had quite the windfall acquiring Claire – she'll never look too old for this kind of assignment."

His casual cruelty reminds Peter of his own father.

"Daddy – "

"Talk to me again when you've actually graduated, Elle."

Elle looks away, her mouth trembling. Noah's arms are folded. He stares disapprovingly at Bob. Peter was sure Claire was going to protest too when Bob brought up the issue of high school, but after seeing what happened to Elle she sets her shoulders. Scans her folder.

"Marie Landry. Possible nuclear ability. Like Ted Sprague?"

Claire's deflecting attention from Elle. Noah gives her a small smile.

"Read the file. Your books and your uniforms are in my office. You start Monday. You have no idea, the strings we had to pull to get you girls in this soon. Don't screw this up."

"No, Daddy." Elle whispers.

Gabriel's watching all this with detached interest. Peter doesn't want him knowing Elle's weakness. He doesn't want him to have seen this. Elle pushes out of the room without looking at Claire, and Peter can hear the fast click of her heels retreat down the hall.

"The nightmare man – " Claire begins hesitantly.

"Is no longer your responsibility." Bob says. "The killers aren't interested in you. They want Company founders. Angela and I are very well guarded, and I'm contacting those founders who remain. Now, if you'll excuse me."

When the door's shut behind him Nathan leans back against the wall. "What a dick."

Peter's surprised into a laugh. It's really not funny.

"How could he treat her like that? In front of everyone." Claire asks Noah.

Noah smiles. It's not a nice smile. "You'd be surprised."

Peter doesn't know what he means. But he seems to be implying that this is hardly the worst way Bob's treated Elle. Peter doesn't want to know.

"So. You're the man with the plans." Nathan says, dismissing the subject of Bob's dickery.

"Buddy system's over. He wants Company founders, like Bob said. Angela's guarded round the clock. You," Noah turns to Gabriel, "get your stuff out of the house. Report back to Bob at ten tomorrow. We've got an assignment of our own, you and I."

He looks kind of happy at the prospect. Pleased, anyway. Gabriel's eyes narrow and Bennet smiles. That really can't be anything good – not for Gabriel, anyway. Still. Whatever keeps him away from Nathan and the girls.

"And me and Nathan?" Peter asks.

"The two of you rest up. We're going to need you to bring these guys in."

"What about me and Elle? High school, Dad?"

Noah smiles. "We'll talk about it at home." He promises. "At the house."

Nathan's house isn't his home. Their home, Peter guesses, and it isn't really his either, come to that. Or Gabriel's. But with Dad gone, with Heidi and the boys gone, with Ma here and in the hospital the house has felt less and less like home every day, and having the Bennets there – yes, and Gabriel – it was starting to feel less huge. Less cold. But Sandra and Lyle left, taking their dog. Noah went on assignment. Gabriel's not going to be overshadowing them much longer. People are leaving the house again, and Peter figures it must be his turn.

"I'll come too. I want to get my stuff."

"Why?" Claire asks.

"I should be getting back to my own place."

"Come on, Peter. Stay." Nathan says, startled. "You're not going to leave me with those girls? They're going to bitch up the house worse than Ma and Heidi."

"You'll manage." Peter says dryly. Nathan claiming he can't handle a couple of women is like… well, there's actually nothing to compare it to.

He kisses Ma goodbye automatically. Claire follows him into the hall, and by mutual agreement they outpace Noah and Gabriel.

"Why?" She asks again, quietly.

"I can't keep doing it. Living a lie. Not in the same house."

"It's not a lie. We're doing the right thing."

_How's that working out for you?_

"I want to keep on doing the right thing. It's – " Peter breaks off. Shakes his head. "It's a lie. But it's right. I want to go on telling it."

Claiming only to love her the way he should, the way a good uncle would love his niece – keeping his distance, being her friend, being her family. It's a lie. When Peter risks a glance at her, Claire's touching the helix. She doesn't seem to know she's doing it. At Bob's door she nods. Takes a deep breath.

"Okay."

"Okay." He wants to touch her. Just to hug her. Just to touch her arm. Her hair.

Claire picks up the garment bag hanging on the doorknob. Peter picks up the box of books. The door's shut. Elle must have taken hers already – or she's in there, crying, while Bob tears her down again.

"A uniform, Dad? Seriously?" Claire asks Noah, catching up to them.

"I told you. We'll talk at home."

They don't really talk on the way back. Gabriel packs up the meagre possessions he's brought to Nathan's house. He's been unusually quiet, and Peter's worried. He doesn't know Gabriel well, but what he does know of him suggests that this silence doesn't bode well for anybody. Peter meets him on his way out.

"You know why you can't stay." Peter says awkwardly. Almost apologetically. The guy's his brother, after all, and he's being kicked out of the house.

Gabriel gives him a bemused look. "Everyone hates me because I kill people?" He guesses.

Okay. Yeah. "Everyone's adjusting, because you _used_ to kill people." Peter says.

Gabriel stares at him for a moment. Peter doesn't know what to say.

"You consistently amaze me." Gabriel tells him. And leaves.

Peter doesn't really know what to make of that exchange, but it feels like progress. Not that he _wants_ progress with the man who hurt Claire – he wants to tear him apart, bloodily, messily – but his brother, six years gone, is a man Peter can't just forget. He wishes he had the luxury of just hating him, like Nathan does. But then, Nathan's always been more like Dad. Things have always been clearer for Nathan.

Peter knocks on Claire's door. "He's gone."

"Come on in." Noah calls.

They're sitting on the bed with a sheaf of papers strewn between them. Claire doesn't look irritated and put out by the assignment anymore – well, not quite so much. She's not exactly enthusiastic, either.

"Your real assignment?" Peter guesses.

Claire hands him a photograph. It's a teenage girl, long, black Bettie Page hair, cheerful grey eyes, voluptuous figure under the navy school blazer and prim white shirt. "Felice Guderian."

"What does she do?"

"Head cheerleader. Straight A student. Parties pretty hard, by all accounts. And she's a fledgling coercer." Noah says.

Peter frowns. "A coercer? What does that mean?"

"She can make you do things. Think things. Want things. Without you even knowing she's doing it, if she's any good, if she feels like being careful about it. It's one of the rarest and most dangerous abilities, one with an unthinkable potential for abuse. We need to get her onside. Train her. Help her. It's a scary ability to have."

"Dad thinks she can help Angela."

"What, she can just tell Ma to wake up?" Peter's not sure about this. Felice Guderian sounds far too dangerous. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Noah understands immediately what he's getting at. "I'll destroy her brain myself before I let Sylar get his hands on it."

Claire doesn't echo his own instinctive revulsion for the thought. She looks grim. Peter guesses Noah's already discussed this with her.

"You're okay with this?" Peter asks her.

"Killing one to save thousands? No. I'm not okay with it."

"We may not have a choice." Noah reminds her.

Claire smiles bitterly. "Sylar has a way of taking our choices from us, doesn't he."

Peter's fists clench. Gabriel. He has to remember to think of him as Gabriel. And he has to forget the girl who tore her choices back from Gabriel, who learned his trick of taking other people's choices away.

"I guess you got it in hand." Peter says, with difficulty. "I better get going."

"Need any help with your bags?" Noah asks, trying to break the tension.

"No, I didn't bring anything much. Thanks."

He's on autopilot as he gathers his things and leaves the house. Claire didn't say anything to him when he left. But he's left her with Noah, and that's the best comfort she can hope for now. Peter hopes to God that it's enough.

X

It's midnight. He might not be awake. "Peter."

"Claire."

She closes her eyes. It's so good to hear his voice. It's too good. It takes her a moment to say what she needs to. "It's a lie."

This happy families charade is a lie. The reality is – the truth is too much. The truth will tear them apart. But some part of Claire desperately needs to tell the truth right now.

"I know." Peter says, and the comfort she feels then is like sunlight. Behind her closed eyes Claire imagines him on the phone in his apartment – Peter, with his luminous eyes. Golden and green and warm, dark brown. Peter, who draws the light to him. Whose smile warms her. Whose touch sets her afire. Peter is light and heat and everything the scared, cold darkness in Claire craves, and must have if she's going to survive. Claire can survive a nuclear explosion.

But she can't survive the sun going out.

"Peter."

"I'm here."

He knows what she needs. She just needs to know he's here. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Claire."

At two she sends him a text. _Peter_.

_I'm here._

At four-thirty she sends him another. _Peter_.

_I'm here._

At six the house is stirring. Claire can hear Dad and Nathan talking in the kitchen. Someone's running a shower somewhere. Must be Elle.

_Peter. I love you._

She doesn't send this one. Just knows what he would say. And it's almost enough.

Claire leaves her sidekick on the nightstand. Showers. Dresses in the unfamiliar uniform of St. Anne's – the green kilt, the white shirt, the navy blazer. It feels scratchy and uncomfortable. When she comes down to breakfast the first thing she sees is Elle, looking perfectly at her ease perched on a stool by the counter, nibbling at a muffin. She seems unconscious of Nathan's admiring gaze.

"Morning." Claire says coldly.

Nathan's appreciation quickly turns into confusion as he notices Claire in the doorway wearing the exact same thing as the schoolgirl he's just been perving on. Well – not the exact same thing. Not exactly. Elle's blazer is crumpled on the counter beside her, for one thing. And for another, her shirt's half tucked in, her collar's askew and her skirt's rolled up to flash a few extra inches of her black tights. She's wearing a black alice band in a mocking attempt at prep school primness. And Nathan's gaze keeps straying to the black ballet flat she's swinging carelessly on the toes of her stockinged foot. Elle is clearly an old hand at this high school thing.

"Morning." Elle says chirpily. She smiles.

Claire elects to just have coffee for breakfast. Something about Elle takes away her appetite. When Dad takes them down to the school Claire's over-caffeinated and jumpy. Dad's the one who gets them sorted out with the principal. She's dealt with Angela before, but sadly Angela's unwell – a bad case of the flu, Dad says, straight-faced. Principal Andrews believes him. Dad asks about the cheerleading team here, and Principal Andrews is very enthusiastic about Claire trying out. It's late, the team's chosen, but she might still make the reserves and then – who knows? Claire wonders how much money Bob and Angela threw at this school.

She tries not to think about cheerleading. That's not her life anymore. Sylar ended that life the night she was supposed to be crowned Homecoming Queen. Killed a part of her, sure as he killed Jackie. Claire digs her nails into the backs of her thighs, concealed by the kilt, by her chair, but there's nothing. Might as well claw at the chair for all the good it does. She's an agent now. And like an agent – like her dad – Claire pulls herself together. Smiles at Dad. Hugs him bye. And sets out with Elle to face St. Anne's, outwardly calm and unflappable as Dad ever was.

St. Anne's is not like Texas. It's not even like California. The boys and the girls are separated, for a start – the boys go to Archbishop Grenfell, a school in a building next door that shares a small quadrangle and connecting corridors with its sister school. They all seem tall and arrogant with their rolled-up shirtsleeves and their expertly tousled bangs. The girls are far worse. If they're not already beautiful, a combination of cunning, art and sacks of Daddy's money help them do their best to fake it. They're all so perfectly groomed and coiffed, and their made-up eyes are all so perfectly bored as they scan Claire and Elle from blonde heads to black toes.

"You get used to it." Elle says. It might be the first halfway decent thing she's ever said to Claire. Before Claire can muster a reply, she's off down the hall. "Hi! Oh my God, I'm _so_ lost. I'm in Mrs Taylor's homeroom? I think? I'm Elle, this is my cousin Claire. She's my half-cousin." Elle says rapid-fire, adding the illogically stupid 'half-cousin' in an annoying attempt at distance. She rolls her eyes for good measure.

The girl she's addressing looks as stunned as Claire feels. It takes Claire a moment to process the familiar green eyes and long red hair, to figure out where she's seen them before. Then she realises Elle has somehow instantly located Marie Landry. The radioactive girl. "Yeah. Okay, yeah. I'm Sunny. Hi."

She has a British accent. That throws Claire off. Marie Landry's staring at her necklace.

"Homeroom?" Elle reminds her.

"Yeah, of course. Right. I've got Mrs Taylor too."

When they get into the small classroom Sunny takes her books out of her bag. Claire sees the helix scrawled on her notebook. She remembers drawing that same helix on her textbooks. Obsessively doodling that simple shape, long before she'd heard of a little book by Chandra Suresh. Long before she'd seen the logo of Arthur Petrelli's law company. Sunny notices her staring.

"I like your necklace."

Claire's fingers graze the familiar sweep of skin-warm metal. "My uncle gave it to me."

_Oh, God. Why are you so stupid?_ It just came out without her meaning to say it, came and swiped at Elle and left her looking far too interested. _That necklace, the one the Haitian used to wear_, Claire remembers saying to her Dad in some other life. Stupid.

"Oh, so your… " Sunny says vaguely, looking at Elle.

"Oh God no," Elle says, with a tinkling little laugh. "Her mom's my mom's half sister, whole other side of the family. I mean, she's _probably_ my mom's half sister, if you know what I mean – that whole side of the family's a little… skanky."

Elle says this last with a pointed look at Claire.

Half-cousin. Right. The only thing Claire can still thank the Lord for is the fact that Elle isn't related to her for real.

After that, school is depressingly… school. Elle has different classes from Claire after homeroom, abandoning her to the tender mercies of St. Anne's. Some things really are just a replay of California. School is boring and girls are bitches. Same old, same old. Other things are different – this uniform, Claire can't get used to it, she feels like a child in it. The jacket doesn't sit right. The tights itch. And every class is all girls. That's the weirdest part, to look around a full classroom and see only girls, no gangly boys with their long legs and loud voices.

Of course, the girls are loud enough themselves. When they want to be.

"Senator Petrelli, that's right."

"Didn't he have a _mental breakdown_?"

Claire flushes and tries to pass the girls like she hasn't heard. It's lunch and she can't find Elle anywhere. Doesn't want to find Elle. But she doesn't want to be in these halls by herself, either.

"The brother was in rehab for like six months. I heard he tried to kill himself, and Senator Petrelli found the body and went crazy."

"I heard the whole family's crazy. I heard this girl Claire went nuts when her mom was murdered."

"Oh my God, are you kidding?"

Claire has to get out of here. It's only when she's running cold water over her hands in the bathroom that she starts to cool off, to find the funny side to all this. Stupid bitches, what do they know? And a wry thought comes to her: _the truth, for starters._ Far more interesting and scandalous than anything the St. Anne's rumour mill has come up with.

Still can't find Elle. Claire's trying to avoid meeting anyone's eyes, trying to be invisible, when she realises her random wanderings have led her past the door of the surprisingly spacious gym.

_5, 6, 7, 8!_

Something in the back of her soul leaps at the sound. She goes back. Stands in the doorway. Can't help it.

"One, two, _three_, four – stop. Stop! Phil, why are you calling it? Ada's calling it." The stunt comes down lamely, the flyer hopping off. A magnificent girl with long black hair puts her hands on her hips. "Whole front row, stretch. I wanna see you guys go again. And this time, Ade, I want to be able to _hear_ you. Okay? Lauren can't hear you. Go again."

Felice Guderian watches the stunt group reload. Claire can just barely hear a tentative voice calling it. A woman she assumes is the coach stands off to the side, watching Felice with a bemused smile. And despite everything she's told herself – over and over for four long months – Claire feels a stab of longing so intense it hurts to be one of those girls. To work as a team, with strength, precision, using momentum and timing to _hit_ and _hold_ –

"Nice." Felice says approvingly. "Try it a couple more times, and Phil? Keep your whore mouth shut."

One of the girls basing rolls her eyes but doesn't bother to say anything. Claire checks to see how the coach is taking this, but the woman's talking to a student with an ankle brace and doesn't seem to have noticed.

"Hi. Claire Petrelli?" Felice says, turning to look at her.

"Bennet. Claire Bennet."

"Sorry." Felice comes over to her. She's smiling. "Principal Andrews said you might be stopping by. You want to see these idiots go from the top?"

No.

"Yeah. Yes. Thanks."

With a dazzling smile, Felice turns away, rousing half the group from their stretches and idle conversations. They spread into formation. The coach cues the music.

Oh, _this_.

Yes.

Something crushed in that hallway is coming alive again in Claire, something vital and necessary, something twisted up in Peter's voice and his eyes and the way sunlight feels on her face. Just something innocent. Hers. Something so far removed from guns and Gabriel and strange, bloodstained kisses that Claire almost believes she can still be saved.

Cheerleading.

Claire leans against the doorframe, defeated.

Still the cheerleader.


End file.
